What’s he like?’
‘Nowhere near as hot in the flesh,’ she lied.
She hadn’t counted on Elsie being quite so starstruck. It was a good few minutes before she could get her off the subject of Alex’s physique and onto the subject of the favour she needed to beg. For Pete’s sake, her future career was at stake here.
‘I need your help,’ she said when she could get a word in. ‘The success of my article depends on it.’
She’d bored Elsie rigid with her writing career plans since they’d both been at school.
‘What kind of help?’
‘I need to look like a goddess—on a budget and in minimum time,’ she said. It sounded an extremely tall order spoken out loud.
‘How long?’ Elsie asked.
‘One day would be nice. For a start, is there some over-the-counter product I can use to make my hair look sun-kissed?’
Elsie made a dismissive chuffing sound.
‘Pah! You don’t need to bother with any of that over-the-counter rubbish. Not when you’ve got a professional on your team. I’ll see you right. Don’t you worry.’
‘But you’re in Littleford. And I can’t afford to pay for you to come here even if I was able to let you stay.’ She didn’t bother to enlighten Elsie about the fight she’d had to keep herself under this roof.
There was a disappointed sigh at the end of the phone.
‘I suppose it was too much to hope for a meeting with Alex,’ she grumbled. ‘And it’s been ages since I’ve seen you. The place has been dead quiet since you took that magazine job.’
Jen squashed the sudden pang of homesickness. No matter how much she had missed her, Elsie would eat Alex alive if she got within touching distance of him.
‘Sorry,’ she said apologetically. ‘He’s rarely home, anyway. We barely see each other. And even if you were here, what I’m after is that modern, subtle, glossy-but-undone look the It-girls have. I need to look like myself, but better. I’m not sure there’s much of a call for that kind of look in Littleford.’
She was trying hard to be tactful but clearly failed, because Elsie gave a derisory sniff.
‘A couple of months in London and you think we’re all hillbillies,’ she complained. ‘Just because I spend my days doing shampoo and sets for grannies doesn’t mean I don’t have all the skills for modern stuff, you know. A tint is a tint, whether it’s blue, pink or just-back-from-Cannes-gold. I’ll pop some colorant in the post tonight, shall I?’
Jen brightened immediately.
‘Is it something I can do myself, then? Can you write me a list of instructions?’
‘I can do better than that, honey. I’ll instruct you personally via Skype.’ She spoke in bossy and professional tones, as though she were a stylist to the stars, then ruined it by adding with a touch of stalker, ‘Now, give me Alex Hammond’s address.’
After a day of catch-up phone calls and e-mails, in which the subject of his swift departure from the States was skated over, Alex wandered into the kitchen on a fact-finding mission. Mark’s follow-up phone call had come that afternoon.
‘There is no Jennifer Brown that my press contacts have ever heard of, but it’s hardly an unusual name, and the world is stuffed with freelancers trying to get a foot in the door. If anything that makes her more dangerous. She’s getting exclusive first-hand experience of your day-to-day life, and at some point—if it hasn’t already—it will occur to her that she’s sitting on a fantastic scoop.’
The morning papers had brought another spate of articles about him and Viveca, and Alex’s never hugely impressive patience was close to breaking point. There were three films in varying stages of production that he should be immersed in, and instead he was stuck here, keeping out of sight, all because the studios backing them financially were unsettled by the sudden tabloid interest in his sex life. At this time of year more than ever he wanted to be busy. Needed to be busy. Working hard and partying harder. Anything but sitting here twiddling his thumbs in the flat with time to think about what might have been. He just wanted this whole ridiculous thing wrapped up so he could get back to doing what he did best.
‘Then get something on her!’ he snapped at Mark. ‘Get some leverage that we can use if she tries anything.’
‘I can’t do that when I don’t know who she is,’ Mark protested. ‘I need more background. Though it fills me with dread to say it …’ he took a breath ‘… you’re going to have to go and chat her up.’
FINDING the kitchen deserted, Alex followed the sounds of the TV and found Jen in the small den off the kitchen. It was a small, informal sitting room, cosier than the vast main lounge, with a small sofa, a couple of chairs and a very inferior forty-inch TV set. Where television was concerned, in Alex’s opinion, size definitely mattered.
Jen was curled up in the corner of the sofa under a well-worn patchwork quilt that he didn’t recognise. In fact, glancing around, he saw quite a few items that couldn’t possibly have been put there by the interior designer he’d employed. There were framed snapshots and Christmas cards on the sideboard, tinsel on the mantelpiece and a small potted Christmas tree near the window. A fire crackled in the grate.
From nowhere came an unexpected flash of envy. She’d settled in. Surrounded herself with things that meant something to her, reminded her of her home, her family. When had he last done that anywhere? When had he last bothered with Christmas decorations? These days it didn’t seem worth the effort just for him, although Jen clearly didn’t see it that way. Home for him was whichever house he happened to be in, and family didn’t fit in his life any more. Susan had seen to that.
Jen was wearing glasses and eating cheese on toast from a plate that was balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa. She looked tiny and somehow fragile.
She glanced up at him.
‘Hi,’ she said.
He nodded towards one of the empty chairs. ‘You mind?’
She shrugged noncommittally, but turned the sound down on the TV and took her glasses off, so he figured she couldn’t be dead against him joining her.
‘I thought the whole appeal of the executive house-sitting thing was that people get to experience luxury they can’t afford themselves,’ he said, settling back in the chair. ‘You know—get a fabulous pad at a fraction of the rent.’
She was watching him, blue eyes wide. He liked the way she didn’t fuss with her appearance. Her hair was piled up in a messy bun and he could see a tiny spray of freckles over her nose. No evidence of hours spent in front of the mirror with a make-up brush. He was used to ultra-groomed women, for whom venturing out was all about the way they looked. She was a breath of fresh air.
‘What’s your point?’
‘So how come you’re eating cheese on toast off your lap in the den? The sitting room doesn’t look lived-in, and you didn’t even bag the master bedroom. This is the only room apart from the kitchen that looks like you’ve set foot in it. You are free to use the whole apartment, you know.’
‘Where would you suggest I eat, then?’ she asked. ‘That enormous glass table in your dining room? The one that seats twelve?’ She shrugged. Smiled faintly. ‘I’m not that kind of girl.’ She glanced around. ‘I feel more at home in here. It’s cosy. You can keep your huge lounge with that monster TV.’
He felt another uncomfortable twist of nostalgia as for no reason his childhood home slipped into his mind. Not a glass table in sight back then, and they’d been lucky to