Man vs. Socialite. Charlotte Phillips
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day’s newspapers lying in a pile to one side of the bar, the front pages of nearly all the red tops featuring some gleeful article about the up-and-coming show. The production company would be made up at the media interest.
He turned a page and choked on his mineral water.
Evie Staverton-Lynch’s PR team had clearly been working overtime. A double-page spread featured a colour photo of Evie looking clear-eyed at the camera and wearing a forest-green Jack Trent’s Survival Camp Extreme T-shirt and what looked like nothing else. She had the longest, most delectable legs he’d ever seen. His mouth leached of all moisture and he took an exasperated slug of his drink. He had no wish to find her so hot and it might help if he didn’t keep inadvertently coming across full-colour photos of her in varying delicious states of undress. He forced his eyes to the accompanying article instead. The interview hit just the right tone of contrite. ‘I made a stupid untrue comment in a moment of stress. Taking the survival course is payback for that. I hope it will show how sorry I am and that Jack Trent’s show is the genuine article.’
Since when had denial of all responsibility gone out of the window in favour of doing all she could to restore his good name? He allowed himself a last look at the shapely legs and peach-glossed pout before he closed the paper. Genuine remorse or media spin? He had his doubts. He knew from past experience that people like Evie Staverton-Lynch played the press to their own advantage, changing their attitude at a moment’s notice to suit themselves. Not that he should care one bit either way as long as his reputation came out of this without a smear.
To his enormous surprise, when he checked with Reception for her room number, she hadn’t made any complaint about the sparse facilities. He got the impression from the over-attentive Reception staff that the lack of diva uproar was something of a disappointment.
‘She just arrived on her own, checked in and took herself up to the room. Didn’t even ask for the concierge to take her bags,’ the over-attentive receptionist, who according to the pink badge strategically placed on her low-cut blouse was called Sally, said. ‘Haven’t heard a peep from her since except for a call to Room Service.’
The staff had clearly been expecting her to storm back down as soon as she saw the room and felt cheated at the lack of bratty behaviour. For the first time he found himself wondering just how much of the spoilt socialite impression Evie gave was genuine. Small contradictions at first, lack of diva complaints about the crappy facilities when there was no camera around to witness the tantrum. The fact that she’d travelled up here completely alone. Where were the rich family and glossy friends and hangers-on?
He knew about using a public image to your advantage, despite the fact it made him feel uncomfortable. The media spotlight had done wonders for his charity work and his survival business. When in London he had a shortlist of on-off girlfriends to provide him with the perfect date when he needed to attend anything public. Models or starlets who shared the same showbusiness agent as him and were more than happy with the exposure of being seen out with him at charity functions or parties. He kept things casual at all costs. Enjoy the moment then move on; that was the way he liked it.
The tabloid press gleefully wrote about his glamorous girlfriends and his daredevil outdoor exploits and largely ignored his family background. And as a result the public at large had no clue about his youth, his past failures or about the selfish way he’d let his sister down. That was the way he intended to keep it.
Evie Staverton-Lynch’s success was based entirely on manipulation of the media. That didn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t more to her than the papers gave away.
The hotel lift wasn’t working so he took the stairs.
* * *
Expecting Room Service with what was bound to be a substandard lasagne, Evie jumped a little in surprise when she opened the door to see Jack Trent leaning laconically against the door jamb.
‘What, no entourage?’ he said. The green eyes held a hint of amusement, which crinkled them at the corners and made her stomach give an extremely ill-judged flutter. For Pete’s sake, she was not attracted to a man who was going to take pleasure in making her crawl through mud this time tomorrow.
She kept hold of the door.
‘Excuse me?’ she said.
‘Don’t people like you have a gang of hangers-on that accompany you everywhere? You know, for hair and make-up and general love-ins.’
Did he have any idea of the ludicrousness of that comment? None of her friends were prepared to desert their luxury London lives for somewhere as devoid of consumer durables as this in order to offer her some support. In fact, there’d been a marked drop in contact from her social circle in these last few days. Supportive friendship apparently didn’t hold much weight in the face of disassociating yourself from the bad-mouthing Jack Trent media scandal. On her own, therefore, in the middle of nowhere, she’d spent the past hour flicking through the laminated ‘Hotel Information’ brochure, working out that with no satellite TV the choice of movie that evening was reduced to one—a sci-fi blood-fest, just bloody great—and wondering if she could bear the alternative: watching something else on the tiny screen of her phone via the somewhat erratic Wi-Fi.
‘Love-ins?’ she snapped. ‘Have you not been following the media? The entire country wants to see me fall flat on my face. Ideally in a swamp.’
The public interest showed no sign of abating, much to the glee of Purple Productions. Any hope that the furore might die down had long since disappeared. Her only hope, according to Chester, was to play the apology card for all she was worth, take the flak, and hope the tide would turn in her favour.
‘That could be arranged,’ he said.
She looked up to see a grin touch the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t entirely unfriendly. It occurred to her that getting him onside could make this whole hideous situation a million times easier so she offered him a smile in return.
‘Did you want something?’
‘I thought I’d run through the kit list with you, check you’re ready for tomorrow. I like to check in with all the candidates for my courses the night before, answer any questions, that kind of thing.’
‘Very professional,’ she said.
He waited, eyebrows raised, until she pushed the door back and let him step past her into the horrible hotel room.
One of the narrow twin beds was piled high with kit delivered by an enthusiastic production minion who was clearly beside herself with glee at the prospect of Evie Staverton-Lynch freezing her arse off for the weekend in the most repellent, unglamorous set of garments she’d ever come across. She tried to imagine a single situation prior to today when she might have considered wearing waterproofs and failed to come up with one. She was a city girl; she hadn’t been near the great outdoors since the childhood camping holidays her mother had loved, and they were long gone. Her father’s strategy for moving on from the past had involved avoiding nostalgia trips of any kind. A new family holiday destination was quickly slotted in with the purchase of a house in France, to which she and Will were despatched a few times a year, always with a nanny. Revisiting the idea of outdoor living held an undertow of uneasiness at what memories it might dredge up.
Then again, Survival Camp Extreme was about as far as it was possible to get from the glimpses of sunny camping holidays by the beach that she remembered. When it came to this weekend, nostalgia was surely the least of her worries.
The minuscule room seemed infinitely smaller with Jack Trent in it and her stomach gave a traitorous flip of nerves, which she steadfastly ignored. She could schmooze with the best of them and surely even Jack Trent could be charmed. It was just a matter of hitting the right approach. She crossed the sticky carpet to the teetering pile of kit and began sifting through it, although she’d already looked through it once with growing disquiet. A balaclava lay on the top of the pile, for goodness’ sake.
She could feel his eyes on her.
‘All ready for tomorrow, then?’ he said.
She