past ten years. He had worked himself up from being the post room boy and sacrificed relationships and anything close to a social life to reach this point in his career.
This was more than just a jump on the promotion ladder; this was the job he had been dreaming about since he was a teenager. The only job that he had ever wanted. Ever. No way was he going to be diverted from that editor’s chair. Not now, not when he had come so far.
Sam blinked twice. ‘Sorry, Frank, but can you say that again? Because I think I must have misheard. I’ve just spent the last ten years working my way from New York to Los Angeles on the back of celebrity interviews. I applied to be an investigative journalist not a gossip columnist.’
Frank replied with a dismissive snort and he bit off a laugh. ‘Do you know what pays for this shiny office we are sitting in, Sam? Magazine sales. And the public love celebrity stories, especially when it concerns a girl with the looks of Amber DuBois. It’s all over the Internet this morning that orchestras have been lining up and offering her huge bonuses to come and work for them for one last season before she retires. And then there is her publicity machine. The girl is a genius.’
He raised one hand into the air and gave Sam a Vee sign. ‘She has only ever been seen with two dates in the last ten years. Two. And not your boring classical musician—oh, no, our girl Amber likes top action men. First there was the Italian racing car driver who she cheered on to be World Champion, then that Scottish mountaineer. Climbing Everest for charity. With the lovely Amber at Base Camp waving him farewell with a tear in her eye. She is the modelling musical sweetheart and her fans love her—and now this.’
The pen went back to some serious tapping. ‘Think of it as your first celebrity interview for the London office. Who knows? This could be the last fluff piece you ever write. Use some of that famous charm I’ve been hearing about—the lovely Miss DuBois will be putty in your hands.’
His hands? Sam’s fingers stretched out over his knees. Instantly his mind starting wheeling through the possibility that someone had tipped off this shark of an editor that ten years ago those same hands had known every intimate detail about Amber ‘Bambi’ DuBois. Her hopes, her dreams, the fact that she always asked for extra anchovies on her pizza and had a sensitive spot at one side of her neck that could melt her in seconds. The way her long slender legs felt under his fingertips. Oh, yes, Sam Richards knew a lot more about Amber DuBois than he was prepared to tell anyone.
This job was going to make or break his career, but he had promised himself on the night they’d parted that, no matter how desperate he was for money or fame, he would never tell Amber’s story. It was too personal and private. And he had kept that promise, despite the temptation—but the world he worked in did not see it that way.
Sam had seen more than one popular musician or actor pull celebrity stunts to get the attention of the media, and he had learnt his craft by writing about their petty dramas and desperate need for attention, but Amber had never been one of them. She didn’t need to. She had the talent to succeed on her own, as well as a body and a face the camera loved.
Frank shuffled in his chair. Impatient for his reply.
Sam took one look into those clever, scheming eyes and the sinking feeling that had been in the bottom of his stomach since he had walked into the impressive office building that morning turned into a gaping cavern.
He was just about to be stitched up.
What could he do? He did not have the authority to walk into a new office and demand the best jobs as though they owed him a future. Just the opposite. But Frank might have waited until his second day as the new boy.
‘I’m sure you’re right, Frank. But I was looking forward to getting started on that investigation into Eurozone political funding we talked about. Has it fallen through?’
Frank reached into his desk drawer and handed Sam a folder of documents.
‘Far from it. Everything we have seen so far screams corruption at every level from the bottom up. Take a look. The research team have already lined up a series of interviews with insiders across Europe. And it’s all there, waiting for someone to turn over the stones and see what is crawling underneath.’
Sam scan read the first few pages of notes and background information for the interviews and kept reading, his mind racing with options on how he could craft a series of articles from the one investigation. And the more he read, the faster his heart raced.
This was it. This was the perfect piece of financial journalism that would set him up as a serious journalist on the paper and win him the editor’s job he had sacrificed a lot to achieve. And it had to be the London office. Not Los Angeles or New York. London.
‘Does your dad still have that limo service in Knightsbridge? We’ve used them a couple of times. Great cars. Your dad might get a kick out of seeing your name on the front page.’
Might? His dad would love it.
His father had sacrificed everything for him after his mother left them. He had been a single parent to a sullen and fiercely angry teenager who was struggling to find his way against the odds. Driven by the burning ambition to show the world that he was capable of being more than a limo driver like his dad.
Sam Richards had made his father’s life hell for so many years. And yet his dad had stuck by him every step of the way without expecting a word of thanks.
And now it was payback time.
This promotion to the GlobalStar London office was a first step to make up for years of missed telephone calls and flying Christmas visits.
Shame that his shiny new career was just about to hit an iceberg called Amber DuBois.
Aware that Frank was watching him with his arms crossed and knew exactly how tempting this piece was, Sam closed the folder and slid it back across the desk. This was no time to be coy.
‘Actually, he sold the limo business a few years back to go into property. But you’re right. He would be pleased. So how do I make that happen, Frank? What do I have to do to get this assignment?’
‘Simple. You have built up quite a reputation for yourself as a hard worker in the Los Angeles office. And now you want an editor’s desk. I understand that. Ten years on the front line is a long time, but I cannot just give you a golden story like this when I have a team of hungry reporters sitting outside this office who would love to make their mark on it. All I am asking you to do is show me that you are as good as they say you are.’
Frank slid the dossier back into his desk drawer. ‘If you want the editor’s desk, you are going to have to come back with an exclusive interview from the lovely Amber. Feature length. Oh—and you have two weeks to do it. We can’t risk someone else breaking Amber’s story before we do. Do we understand each other? Excellent, I look forward to reading your exposé.’
Sam rose to shake hands and Frank’s fingers squeezed hard and stayed clamped shut. ‘And Sam. One more thing. The truth about “Bambi’s Bollywood Babies” had better be amazing or you will be back to the bottom of the ladder all over again, interviewing TV soap stars about their leg-waxing regime.’
He released Sam with a nod. ‘You can take the magazine. Have fun.’
Sam closed the door to Frank’s office behind him and stood in silence on the ocean of grey plastic industrial carpet in the open-plan office, looking out over rows of cubicles. He had become used to the cacophony of noise and voices and telephones that was part of working in newspaper offices just like this, no matter what city he happened to be in that day. If anything, it helped to block out the alarm sirens that were sounding inside his head.
This was the very office block that he used to walk and cycle past every day on his way to school. He remembered looking up at the glass-fronted building and dreaming about what it must be like to be a top reporter working in a place like this. Writing important articles in the newspapers that men like his dad’s clients read religiously in the back seat of the limo.
The weird thing was—from the very first moment