didn’t like him.’
‘Did you expect me to?’ she challenged.
He pulled a face. ‘I hoped you would.’
‘Well, I didn’t!’ she told him vehemently, her usually calm features animated with her dislike of the man.
‘Pity.’ Derek looked away, standing up to pace the room, a worried frown to his face.
Eve tensed. ‘How much of a pity?’ she asked slowly.
His expression became evasive. ‘He’s a powerful man,’ he shrugged. ‘It never pays to antagonise men like that.’
Judy looked puzzled. ‘Are we talking about Bart Jordan?’
‘Judy——’
‘Yes,’ Eve cut across Derek’s warning. ‘Yes, we’re talking about Bart Jordan, Judy. What do you know about him?’
The other girl frowned. ‘Well, I—I—Derek?’ she looked at him appealingly.
‘Okay,’ Eve sighed, ‘Derek can tell me. What about Bart Jordan, Derek?’
He shrugged. ‘I already told you, he isn’t a good man to make an enemy of. Make us some coffee, sweetheart?’ he requested of his wife.
Eve knew it was a way of getting the other girl out of the room, which only heightened her suspicions. ‘Derek!’ she said firmly once they were alone. ‘I want to know what’s going on.’
He threw himself back down into the armchair, one leg hanging over the arm. ‘Nothing is going on,’ he dismissed tersely, a sure sign that he was agitated. He was usually so even-tempered that Eve knew there was something wrong.
She frowned, biting her bottom lip. ‘Why do I get the feeling there’s something you aren’t telling me?’
‘I have no idea,’ he dismissed. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting to bed? You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow.’
‘And the day after that, and the day after that,’ she grimaced. ‘A week of this and I’ll be dead.’
‘A week of this and you’ll be made,’ Derek corrected.
She quirked an eyebrow. ‘I thought I already was,’ she reminded him, tongue-in-cheek.
‘Yeah, well—wait until you see the reviews in the morning!’ His enthusiasm was never dampened for long, in fact it was this enthusiasm that had got Eve this far.
She stood up. ‘Don’t wake me,’ she instructed tiredly.
‘Not even for the reviews?’
‘Not even for them,’ she groaned, aching in every bone of her body. Her stage show involved dancing as well as singing.
‘Rehearsals at eleven sharp,’ he reminded her, his mind firmly on business as usual.
‘Don’t remind me!’ She staggered into her bedroom.
Without Derek’s prodding and hard work Eve doubted she would ever have risen above touring the seedy clubs she had been working in when they had first met. At the time she had been happy with her lot, had accepted what she felt to be her limitations, had lacked the drive and ambition to get even as far as she was today, let alone the superstar bracket Derek had mapped out for her. But Derek had pushed her on until now she had one hit record behind her, another new release, and now this concert.
Derek had worked so hard on her behalf, had begged and stolen work for her, until the last six months her career had really taken off. She couldn’t exactly be called an overnight success, although the public recognition, such as the taxi-driver’s, still came as something of a surprise to her.
Had Carl seen her success? Did he ever regret the way he had forced her out of his life?
Damn Carl! She hadn’t thought of him for months—well, weeks—well, actually it was days, but who was counting? Bartholomew Jordan had brought back the memories of Carl, one more reason why she hated him. Just another rich man who thought his money could buy him everything, including love!
She could finally remove the detested make-up, and felt cleaner and fresher once that was done. She studied her reflection in the mirror. Derek was right, she did look about sixteen without the make-up; she also, to her mind, looked more attractive.
At the end of the week she could go back to Norfolk and be just the nonentity Eve Meredith, could go back to her houseboat and live a normal life again. Derek had promised her a holiday after this week of concerts, and she could hardly wait to get back to Norfolk. Maybe she wasn’t really cut out for stardom, although this was a hell of a time to discover it, and Derek felt sure that she could make it right to the top. Still, much as she valued him as a friend, she still knew that fifteen per cent of nothing was nothing.
She turned over in the bed. Heavens, she was an ungrateful bitch tonight! Everything was sure to look brighter in the morning.
It did. She felt revitalised by her long sleep, her usual energy back in evidence. The reviews were good but guarded, speculating as to whether her dazzling performance could be maintained throughout the week.
‘I’ll show them!’ she told Derek, throwing the newspapers down in disgust.
He smiled. ‘That’s my girl!’
Rehearsals went perfectly, any minor adjustments that needed to be made being quickly ironed out. After a couple of hours of this she was ready to go back to the apartment and rest. She was delicately made, very slender, and she would need all the energy she could muster for the gruelling evening ahead of her. Maybe the critics were right after all, maybe she didn’t have the stamina for this sort of life.
When she arrived back at the flat it was to find the biggest bouquet of red roses she had ever seen in her life lying on the doorstep; both Judy and Derek were out. She recoiled just at the sight of them, her expression darkening as she read the card that went with them. It was signed simply ‘Bart’.
The roses went straight into the dustbin, the card along with them. God, that man was really pushing his luck! Bart, indeed! Only his so-called ‘friends’ called him that!
She was so steamed up she must have paced the apartment for half an hour or more, sleep completely forgotten. She was so angry that she sent him a telegram in the end; it read, ‘Received and discarded, Eve Meredith’. She sent it to his bank, knowing that something as important as a telegram would reach him wherever he was.
That would show him what she thought of him and his roses!
It was when she woke up that the uncertainty set in. Much as she disliked Bartholomew Jordan and everything he represented, he really wasn’t a man she should antagonise. And the telegram had been a childish gesture. It should have been enough that she knew she had destroyed the roses. This way she was inviting retribution.
But it seemed not. A second bouquet of roses appeared at the theatre that evening, this time signed ‘Bartholomew Jordan’. He had to have received her telegram by now. Unless he had placed the order for these roses before he had received it? But that didn’t make sense, not when he had signed the second card so formally.
He certainly was a persistent man, surprisingly so, although it was doubtful that he needed to be this persistent normally; most women would be falling over themselves just to be associated with him.
Derek’s eyebrows rose as he saw the roses still lying in their cellophane on the table where Eve had thrown them. ‘An admirer?’ he asked curiously, obviously looking for the card she had put away in her handbag.
‘One with more money than sense,’ she nodded. Her cat-suit was a deep red this evening, her hair long and crinkled from the tight plaits she had bound it in after washing it this afternoon. Her make-up was just as dramatic, her mouth a deep slash of red to match the suit.
‘Here,’ Derek broke off one of the roses and pushed it into her hair over her ear.