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 that he had told his dad that he wanted to be a journalist on this paper, his dad had worked all of the extra hours and midnight airport runs, week after week, month after month, to make that possible. He had never once doubted that he would do it. Not once.
And now he was here. He had done it.
The one thing he had never imagined was that his first assignment in his dream job would mean working with Amber.
Sam glanced at the magazine cover in his hand. And reflected back at him was the lovely face of the one woman in the world who was guaranteed to set the dogs on him the minute he even tried to get within shouting distance.
And in his case he deserved it. The nineteen-year-old Sam Richards had given Amber DuBois very good reason to never want to talk to him again.
He might have given Amber her first kiss—but he had broken her heart just as fast.
Now all he had to do was persuade her to overlook the past, forgive and forget and reveal her deep innermost secrets for the benefit of the magazine-reading public.
Fun might not be the ideal word to describe how he was feeling.
But it had to be done. There was no going back to Los Angeles. For better or worse, he had burnt those bridges. He needed this job. But more than that—he wanted it. He had worked hard to be standing on this piece of carpet, looking out, instead of standing outside on the pavement, looking in.
He owed it to his dad, who had believed in him when nobody else had, even after years of making his dad’s life a misery. And he owed it to himself. He wasn’t the second class chauffeur’s son any longer.
He had to get that interview with Amber.
No matter how much grovelling was involved.
‘And you are quite sure about that? No interviews at all? And you did tell Miss DuBois who was calling? Yes. Yes I understand. Thank you. I’ll be sure to check her website for future news.’
Sam flicked down the cover on his cellphone and tapped the offending instrument against his forehead before popping it into his pocket.
Her website? When did a professional talent agency direct a journalist to a website? No, it was more than that. His name was probably on some blacklist Amber had passed to her agent with instructions that she would not speak to him under any circumstances.
He needed to think this through and come up with a plan—and fast.
Sam wrapped the special polishing cloth around his fist and started rubbing the fine polish onto the already glossy paintwork on the back wheel arch of his dad’s pride and joy. The convertible vintage English sports car had been one of the few cars that his dad had saved when he had to sell the classic car showroom as part of the divorce from Sam’s mother.
It had taken Sam and his dad three years to restore the sports car back to the original pristine condition that it was still today. Three years of working evenings after school and the occasional Sunday when his dad was not driving limos for other people to enjoy.
Three years of pouring their pain and bitterness about Sam’s mother into hard physical work and sweat, as though creating something solid and physical would somehow make up for the fact that she had left Sam with his dad and gone off to make a new life for herself with her rich boyfriend. A life funded by the sale of his dad’s business and most of their savings.
But they had done it. Together. Even though Sam had resented every single second of the work they did on this car. Resented it so much that he could cheerfully have pushed it outside onto the street, set it on fire and delighted in watching it burn. Like his dreams had burnt the day his mother left.
In another place, with another father and another home, Sam might have taken his burning fury out in a sports field or with his fists in a boxing ring or even on the streets in this part of London.
Instead, he had directed all of his teenage frustration and anger and bitterness at his father.
He had been so furious with his dad for not changing jobs like his mother had wanted him to.
Furious for not running after her and begging her to come back and be with them—like he had done that morning when he came down for breakfast early and saw her going out of the front door with her suitcases. He had followed that taxi cab for three streets before his legs gave way.
She had never even looked back at him. Not once.
And it was all his dad’s fault. The arguments. The fights. They were all his fault. He must have done something terrible to make her leave.
Sam’s gaze flicked up at the thin partition wall that separated the cab office from the workshop. Just next to the door was a jagged hole in the plaster sheet the size of a teenage fist.
Sam’s fist.
It was the closest he had ever come to lashing out at his dad physically.
The screaming and the shouting and the silent stomping about the house had no effect on this broken man, who carried on working as though nothing had happened. As though their lives had not been destroyed. And to the boy he was then, it was more than just frustrating—it was a spark under a keg of gunpowder.
They’d survived three long, hard years before Sam had taken off to America.
And along the way Sam had learnt the life lessons that he still carried in his heart. He had learnt that love everlasting, marriage and family were outdated ideas which only wrecked people’s lives and caused lifelong damage to any children who got caught up in the mess.
He had seen it first-hand with his own parents, and with the parents of his friends like Amber and the girls she knew. Not one of them came from happy homes.
The countless broken marriages and relationships of journalists and the celebrities he had met over the years had only made his belief stronger, not less.
He would be a fool to get trapped in the cage that was marriage. And in the meantime he would take his time enjoying the company of the lovely ladies who were attracted to luxury motors like free chocolate and champagne, and that suited him just fine.
No permanent relationships.
No children to become casualties when the battle started.
Other men had wives and children, and he wished them well.
Not for him.