City on fire.’
‘Your idea is for a bird magazine?’ said Cate, her heart sinking.
‘Parrots.’
‘Well, the pet market is huge,’ she acknowledged, not wanting to mock his idea.
Nick started laughing – a deep, loud laugh. ‘No, I’m not doing a bloody parrot magazine. That was a joke.’
It was Cate’s turn to feel riled. How dare he make her feel stupid when she was only trying to be kind? She bowed her head to stop him seeing her cheeks burn red and began to rummage around in her bag, trying to find her mobile to call a taxi. She’d had enough of this. Nick Douglas was obviously not the charmer Tom had described. Unable to find the phone, she pulled out a thin portfolio she had put together, full of layouts and mood boards, and put it on the table.
‘Is this it?’ asked Nick, craning his neck over to the side of the table.
Before Cate could stop him, Nick was reaching for the black leather portfolio. She shot out her hand and put it on top of his.
‘I wasn’t giving you that,’ she snapped pulling it back.
‘Then why are we here?’ He looked up at the angry, determined line of her mouth, which he found, against his better judgement, quite cute.
‘Hey, don’t look so worried,’ laughed Nick more softly, putting his palms up in surrender. ‘I’m not the KGB! If you’re worried about me pinching your idea, which of course I won’t, I am quite happy to sign a NDA.’
‘A what?’
‘Non-disclosure agreement. Not that they are worth the paper they are written on, but I’m happy to sign one.’
Cate took a deep breath and looked into Nick’s intense eyes. ‘OK,’ she said, pushing the folder across to him. ‘I trust you,’ she added, not very convincingly. Nick returned her gaze, then nodded.
He opened the folder and sat patiently and methodically working his way through the layouts, spreading them out onto the battered wood of the pub table as Cate launched into a passionate description of her vision and her belief that there was a real niche in the market.
He carried on flipping the pages, occasionally glancing up at Cate. She was sitting under a wall-lamp, the light spilling down on her face. She looked as if she was glowing in happiness.
‘I love this,’ said Nick at last, ‘I’m genuinely impressed. It’s so fresh. Makes all those dull travel magazines look so bloody boring and personality-free. And the fashion is gorgeous,’ he said, pointing at a picture of Serena astride an elephant, a late-evening Indian sun shining on her skin. ‘It makes the fashion mags look so po-faced.’
‘Well, that is a Mario Testino shot,’ shrugged Cate, trying not to burst with pride. ‘He makes people look so exotic and luscious.’
‘Even so, this is brilliant, Cate. I know the advertisers will just love it. It’s glamorous, it’s escapist, it’s new. And there’s certainly nothing on the shelves like it.’
He shut the file, which closed with a whispering thud.
‘So?’ Cate had gathered he liked it, but wasn’t sure whether he thought of it as a business opportunity.
‘It’s exactly what I, sorry, we, need,’ he continued carefully. ‘From a business point of view, it would be madness for a small start-up publishing company to launch a mainstream women’s magazine like Marie Claire or InStyle. Our pockets just wouldn’t be deep enough to compete. And if we did try, the big publishing companies like Alliance would just try and destroy us with their muscle at the news-stand. But this,’ he clinked his empty pint of Guinness against Cate’s glass, ‘this is brilliant. A travel and fashion magazine is niche enough for us to build a thriving business under everyone else’s radar. But it’s also commercial enough that I think we could easily shift fifty thousand a month. And we’d get good advertising too.’
Cate was tingling all over. ‘So what does that all mean?’ she asked.
‘It means it could work.’
She felt her tummy leap with excitement. ‘That’s fantastic. So what’s the next step?’
‘The first thing we need is a business plan to take to potential backers. I’ll do the figures and draw up a publishing strategy. You need to prepare a really slick presentation of what you’ve just shown me. All this is great editorial stuff, but we’ve got to demonstrate a gap in the market so I need all the facts, figures and circulation figures of any competitors we can think of.’
Ideas started to bounce between them like a Wimbledon tennis rally.
‘I’ll get a list of all celebrities, publicists and photographers we can get on board.’
‘And I’ll get in touch with my ad contacts. If we could just get Armani, British Airways, Chanel – any of the major advertisers – on board before we go to the City, that would be fantastic.’
Cate furiously scribbled down everything into her little black Moleskin notebook. When she looked up, she saw him smiling at her.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You. Like a little beaver.’
In all the excitement and planning, she had almost forgotten that Nick Douglas was the most smug, cocky man she had met in ages.
‘Well, Mr Douglas, if you think I’m so funny, forgive me for spoiling your little cabaret show. I have to be going.’
Nick looked around and, noticing that the pub was emptying out quickly, slipped his arm into the scarlet silk lining of his coat. ‘I’ve got to be off, too. The girlfriend gets nervous if I’m out too late with other ladies,’ he teased, sensing she was a little cross. ‘If it’s all to her honourable’s approval, does that mean the pair of us are in business?’
He flashed her a smile that would have been heart-meltingly sexy if it hadn’t been coming from such an arrogant face.
Against her better judgement, Cate extended her hand and gave him something resembling a smile. She was angry all right, but something about tonight’s planning had made her prickle with excitement. If it was a choice between him or her magazine – well, she was just going to have to take her chances.
She put out her hand. ‘Nick Douglas, I think you just might have a deal.’
Serena was so bored she could hardly keep her eyes open. Although she usually loved talking about herself, she was sick to death of repeating the same glib sound bites about her ‘work’ on To Catch a Thief. Since she’d got back from Mustique two weeks ago, there had been three draining days of interviews in London and hundreds of phone interviews with all sorts of Japanese and European publications. Boring questions from people who could hardly speak a word of English. Now she had another two days of press and television interviews in New York, and if she had to trot out one more tired, clichéd line about, ‘What attracted me to the movie’, she swore she’d commit hari-kari with the heel of her Jimmy Choo.
‘Final question, please,’ said Clara the publicist, popping her red-bobbed head into the Four Seasons Suite overlooking Central Park where Serena was enduring her final interview of the day.
Thank Christ, thought Serena, forcing one final smile for the journalist from Time Out New York. She took a dainty sip of Badoit mineral water and crossed her legs, smoothing down the sharp crease of the Gucci slacks with her fingers. ‘Fire away.’
The journalist shifted in his chair. Clara had warned him that all questions related to Serena and Tom Archer’s recent break-up were strictly off the agenda, but with minutes of the interview to go, he had to give it a shot.
‘So