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was flirting with her husband.’
‘And were you?’ said Gabe, giving Laura’s bottom a playful squeeze as she leaned over to pick up yet more Lego from the floor. Hugh had tried to build a rocket before nursery this morning, with mixed results. ‘You career women will stop at nothing to get what you want. How many times have I told you your place is in the kitchen?’
‘Er, no times?’ said Laura. ‘The last time I cooked for you, you said the lasagne tasted like burned plastic.’
Gabe grimaced. ‘Oo, God yes, that lasagne. That was rough. Not the kitchen then. The bedroom.’ He circled his arms around her waist. ‘I hate you getting on that train to London.’
‘So do I,’ said Laura, with feeling. ‘But unfortunately, unless we can get this show off the ground, we need the money. Now sod off and spread some slurry, or whatever glamorous job it is you have on today.’
Gabe went out into the fields, leaving Laura to finish cleaning up while Luca had his morning nap. She really must sack Lianne. The house was a pigsty. Then again, thought Laura, catching sight of herself in the hall mirror, I fit right in. Still in her dirty Snoopy pyjamas and a dressing gown that was more hole than cloth (too lazy to get dressed, she’d pulled wellies and a coat on over the top to drive Hugh to nursery earlier), her overall look was definitely more Waynetta Slob than Grace Kelly.
A loud banging at the door made her jump. What had Gabe forgotten this time?
‘Be quiet, you arse, you’ll wake the ba … Oh!’ She opened the door to find Eddie Wellesley smiling at her. That same half-smile that had made her feel such an idiot in his library. ‘It’s you.’
Immaculately dressed in corduroy trousers and a royal-blue cashmere sweater, and smelling faintly of toothpaste and expensive cologne, Eddie looked like a creature from another planet. A rich planet. A planet that owned an iron.
‘May I come in?’
Laura glanced back at the sea of mess behind her. ‘Er … the house is a bit, er …’
‘I don’t care about the house,’ Eddie said briskly, easing past her into the hallway. ‘I’m here to talk about selling the “glamour” of the Swell Valley.’ The half-smile had become a full smile now and was openly teasing.
‘You’re in?’ Laura hardly dared believe it.
‘I’m in. So long as we can agree a few quid pro quos, naturally.’
Five minutes later, still in her pyjamas but having managed to brush her hair and wash her face, Laura brought two mugs of coffee into the relatively clutter-free dining room.
Eddie cut to the chase.
‘I’ll stump up a hundred grand to get things started. There’ll be more to come as we need it.’
‘We will need it,’ Laura said honestly.
‘I know. Money’s not going to be a problem.’
What a great sentence, thought Laura. I wonder if Gabe and I will ever be able to say it.
‘I want an exec producer credit, fifty per cent ownership and a say in all business-related decisions, including how we pitch this and to whom.’
‘Did you have somebody in mind?’ Laura asked.
‘Not “somebody” as such,’ said Eddie. ‘But I have some ideas. You know the UK market, so I’ll take your advice on how to sell this here. But I want us to pitch in America as well. The whole “packaging of a lost England” thing. I liked that a lot. And I think the Yanks will lap it up.’
‘I see.’ Laura sipped her coffee. ‘The thing is, the US networks—’
‘Will need a US name attached. I know,’ Eddie interrupted her. ‘Which is why I want to fly out to Los Angeles next week and interview some possible co-presenters.’
‘Next week?’ Laura almost choked on her Nescafé.
‘No point faffing about.’
‘Eddie, I appreciate your enthusiasm, I really do. And I couldn’t be more delighted you want to be involved. But we really have nothing to show people yet.’
‘On the contrary. We have you. We have this place,’ Eddie waved an arm around Wraggsbottom’s beamed dining room. ‘We have a treatment, and funding, and we have your handsome and charming husband to bring it all to life.’
‘You haven’t even met my husband!’ Laura reminded him.
‘If you married him, I’m sure he’s marvellous,’ Eddie purred. ‘And, as you say, he knows this valley inside out. The problem is he has no experience on camera. If we’re going to sell this series globally, we’ll need someone who does.’
‘Right,’ said Laura.
‘Ideally a woman.’
Talking to Fast Eddie was like being run over by a very enthusiastic steamroller. A steamroller that was conveniently made out of money.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Laura said.
‘Of course.’
‘Why are you doing this? I mean, you don’t need the money. Television’s not your business. And you barely know us.’
Eddie laughed. ‘All true, my dear. All true. But I’m a big believer in gut instinct. I like you. I like your idea and I think it has legs. Eventually I hope to go back into politics, but for the time being I need a new challenge.’
‘Well, this will certainly be that,’ said Laura.
‘Have you thought about local opposition? How do you want to handle that?’ Eddie asked. ‘You realize that for every villager who’s excited by the idea of television cameras in the village stores, there’ll be five who feel violated and think you’re defacing their community.’
Laura shrugged breezily. ‘Gabe and I can take a bit of stick.’
‘It might be worse than that,’ Eddie said seriously. ‘If we go forward with this, we all need to be prepared for a fight.’
They finished their coffees and Eddie got up to go.
‘I’ll get my lawyer to draw something up,’ he told Laura. ‘In the meantime, why don’t you see if you can whip up any interest this side of the pond. And I’ll book my flights to California.’
After he left, Laura sat frozen at the dining table for a full minute, feeling not unlike Dorothy after the twister deposited her in Oz.
Did that conversation really just happen?
Are we really going to do this?
She laughed out loud.
Screw you, John Bingham.
I’m about to produce the next big thing in British television.
‘Champagne, sir?’
Eddie Wellesley had barely stepped over the threshold of Michael Hart’s Neo-Palladian mansion when he was accosted by a preposterously handsome young man bearing a silver tray.
‘Thank you.’ Eddie sipped at the dainty crystal flute as he walked down the white marble hallway, feeling like an extra in a Roger Moore movie from the seventies. The famous producer’s house was the last world in vulgarity: ridiculously huge, opulent, gold-plated, and so eye-wateringly naff Eddie doubted whether it could ever have been built in England. At home, even pop stars and footballers and reality stars drew the line somewhere. But not in Los Angeles. Here, there were no lines. Eddie rather liked it.
Even