Emma hadn’t disputed it. It was an unfair fact of life that while male presenters were chosen on ability and personality alone, female ones needed to have an acceptably attractive face and figure. Although nowhere near as pretty as her younger sister, Emma knew she was reasonably attractive. Her bone structure was good, her figure elegantly slender. Her air of cool self-containment put a lot of men off, she knew, David in particular … she frowned a little remembering Mrs Turner’s latest broadside. She had called round the day after the local newspaper had carried a small article mentioning the fact that Emma was being considered for a top London job.
Being in television was all very well in its way, she had begun when Emma asked her in, ‘but it wasn’t really the sort of thing David wanted to be connected with. Reading the news was all very well … but it could lead to other things…’
Anyone would have thought she was proposing to pose nude for a Page 3 photograph, Emma thought sardonically. She knew that Mrs Turner was being ridiculous and so she suspected did the older woman, but David took his mother’s every word seriously and she had boiled with angry indignation at the suggestion that her job somehow made Camilla unfit to become David’s wife.
Camilla was twenty-two years old and should be able to cope with her own problems, she knew, but she didn’t have the heart to tell her so, saying instead, ‘Come on then, what’s it all about.’
‘Do you remember last month when I went to stay with Fiona?’
Emma nodded. Fiona Blake was one of Camilla’s old schoolfriends. At the moment she was flat-sharing in London with two other girls while she tried her hand at modelling. Fiona’s parents were wealthy enough for it not to matter whether Fiona made a success of her ‘career’ or not, and privately Emma did not think she would.
‘Well while I was there Fiona took me to this party. I didn’t want to go, but she insisted.’
Listening to the aggrieved note in her sister’s voice Emma sighed. Nothing that went wrong in her life was ever Camilla’s fault; she had always been victimised by someone else.
‘Fiona wanted to go because the party was being held by Drake Harwood …’
Drake Harwood? The name was familiar, as well it might be Emma thought, recollecting how the first time she had heard it it had conjured up visions of a tough, buccaneering individual. He was an up and coming entrepreneur who had recently bought out Scanda Enterprises and he was reputed to be extremely wealthy.
‘Fiona wanted to go because he’s taken over Macho magazine, and she thought she might be able to persuade him to use her as one of his models.’
‘Macho? Fiona wants to appear in that?’ Emma grimaced distastefully. ‘Honestly Camilla that girl has more hair than wit. What on earth would her parents say? It’s a girlie mag isn’t it?’
‘Fiona says it’s the only way for unknowns to break into modelling these days.’ Camilla defended her friend. ‘She says…’
‘Never mind what she says,’ Emma broke in, ‘Just tell me what’s got you in such a state. He didn’t ask you to pose for him did he?’ she guessed, darting a frowning look at her sister. Despite her plans to marry David Camilla had always had a yen for the glamour of a ‘Hollywood’ type existence. It was just as well she lacked the ambition to do anything other than daydream about it, Emma decided, hiding her relief at Camilla’s vigorous shake of her head. Camilla simply did not have the determination to succeed in such a dangerous world.
‘No … no … nothing like that.’ She bit her lip. ‘Promise you won’t be cross, and that you won’t breathe a word to David. He’ll never marry me if he finds out.’
‘Good heavens, what on earth have you done?’ She asked it light-heartedly not wanting Camilla to see her concern. Snippets of gossip she had heard and read about Drake Harwood were coming back to her. He had made it the hard way, grafting for every penny of the first few thousand pounds he made; working on a building site until he had enough to start up his own contracting firm. From then on he had gradually built up his empire until now at thirty-four he was considered one of the shrewdest and most dangerous businessmen around.
Macho magazine was just a small part of that empire, she recollected, something he had acquired when he took over Scanda Enterprises. She recollected reading somewhere that it had a pretty poor circulation and that he had been challenged by a rival magazine owner to beat their figures.
No doubt the whole thing was simply a publicity ploy she reflected cynically, certainly the supposed ‘rivalry’ had gained them both a good deal of newspaper space, but how much of an interest he intended to take in what was only a small part of his empire she didn’t really know. Certainly if he intended to use girls like Fiona as his models he wouldn’t do much to improve circulation.
‘So, you went to this party with Fiona,’ Emma pressed, ‘and…’
‘And I don’t remember anything else until the next morning,’ Camilla gulped tearfully, ‘when I woke up in a strange bedroom and …’
‘An even stranger man in bed beside you?’ Emma supplemented drily. ‘Mrs Turner’s going to love that.’
‘No … no I was in bed on my own … in a room of my own,’ Camilla protested. ‘I must have had too much to drink … either that or there was something in them, but Emma, I was so frightened … I just had to get out of that house … I kept thinking what if David could see me now, so …’
‘So …’ Emma prompted.
‘Well, I was still fully dressed, so I just got up and went downstairs. There was no one about, but there was a car outside—a red Ferrari, and the keys were in it … so I … I took it…’
‘You did what?’ Emma stared at her. ‘But Camilla you don’t drive. You’ve always hated it … you don’t have a licence …’
‘I know, but I was so terrified of being found there … I daren’t ring for a taxi … I had to leave … and I do know how to drive … but the car was so big …’
Closing her eyes Emma forced herself not to interrupt.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she said at last. ‘You hit something?’
‘A stone bollard,’ Camilla admitted. ‘You see it was very early in the morning—there wasn’t any traffic, but I saw this milk cart coming and I panicked. I hit the kerb and then this bollard …’
‘And …?’
‘I just got out and ran. Eventually I found a taxi, and I went back to the flat … Fiona wasn’t there, but when she came in I told her what had happened, and she told Drake Harwood, and he’s threatening to sue me for stealing his car and smashing it up …’
Fresh tears started to fall. ‘It will be in all the papers and everyone will know I spent the night there. David will find out and he’ll never marry me … His mother wouldn’t let him.’
Emma suspected that she was right. She gnawed thoughtfully on her lower lip, silently condemning both her sister and Fiona as a pair of stupid fools.
‘Haven’t you been to see Drake Harwood, and tried to explain? I’m sure if you told him the full story …’
Camilla shuddered. ‘You haven’t met him. He’s dreadful … So uncouth. Fiona thinks he’s exciting … but I didn’t like him. I couldn’t go and see him Emma, I just couldn’t … but his solicitor has already written to me. He wants me to pay for the damage to his car, otherwise he’s going to sue … and I can’t afford it.’
‘So what do you want me to do about it,’ Emma asked, already mentally bowing to the inevitable.
Tears were transformed into a radiant smile as Camilla turned towards her. ‘Oh Emma, I was hoping you would help me. Couldn’t you go and see him … Explain …’
‘Explain