was obviously waiting for her to leave.
She had lied her way up here in the first place, and been taken in to this man’s inner sanctum, yet still she had failed in her objective. But other than continuing to pressure him—something guaranteed to annoy him even further—she didn’t have any choice but to comply with his less than subtle hint.
‘You won’t be too hard on Henry?’ she asked as she followed Max back through the sitting room to the door. She hadn’t realised earlier just how strongly Max felt about any invasion of his privacy, and Henry was a man of advanced years, who would have great difficulty finding another job if he was sacked from this one.
Max glanced back at her. ‘Calm down, Abby,’ he taunted. ‘Having witnessed your persuasive powers firsthand—no, I won’t be hard on Henry at all.’ He opened the door as he spoke.
Her ‘persuasive powers’? Did she have some of those? And if she did, why hadn’t Max Harding been persuaded?
He shook his head, smiling slightly. ‘Don’t beat yourself up trying to work out what they are, Abby; all that matters is that they didn’t work on me!’
Obviously not—but she would still have liked to know what they were. If she did, she might be able to use them again—to better effect!
But she could see by the derisive expression on Max’s face as he stood there waiting for her to leave that he certainly wasn’t going to enlighten her. Pity.
‘I’ll make a point of watching your first programme,’ he told Abby softly as she stepped out into the hallway.
She stared up at him suspiciously, uncertain of exactly what he had meant by that, and unable to read any of his thoughts from his blandly mocking expression.
But he had just succeeded in increasing her own first-night nerves by one hundred per cent!
CHAPTER THREE
‘WELL, well, if it isn’t little Abby Freeman!’
Abby groaned as she sank further down into her armchair, having instantly recognised Max Harding’s mocking voice.
Holed up in a corner of the Dillmans’ crowded drawing room, having already drunk three-quarters of the bottle of champagne sitting in the ice bucket on the low table beside her, she was in no mood for company. Something everyone else in the room, including her hosts Dorothy and Paul, seemed to know instinctively and act upon—and of which Max Harding had taken no notice whatsoever!
‘Go away,’ she muttered, without so much as glancing in his direction. She could see the long length of his legs from the corner of her eye, though, and observed that he didn’t move by so much as an inch.
‘I didn’t have you figured as a woman who likes to drink alone.’ He sounded amused now.
Abby raised dark lashes in order to glare at him, her gaze belligerent. ‘I don’t usually drink—alone or otherwise,’ she snapped impatiently. ‘But I’m sure that you and probably everyone else in this room are aware of the reason I’ve made tonight the exception.’ And several million other people, she thought with another inner groan at the remembered humiliation.
How could she have known? How could she have guessed? Why hadn’t someone told her?
‘Hey, Abby, it really wasn’t that bad.’ Max came down on his haunches beside her chair now, the amusement having disappeared from his voice as he looked at her with something like concern. ‘In fact, I thought you recovered very well.’
She hadn’t ‘recovered’ well at all, and she was sure that everyone watching the airing of her first show earlier this evening had known it, too.
As previously agreed, she had interviewed Brad Hammond first for ten minutes, chatting warmly about his earlier career and his success now in a popular television series. Then Brad had gone off the set and Natalie had come on for her allotted ten minutes, discussing her own success.
But all the time those interviews were taking place a buzz had been felt in the studio. Both crew and audience obviously waiting expectantly for the time the estranged pair would come on together, with the promise of emotional fireworks in the air.
Except it had turned out Brad and Natalie were no longer estranged!
Abby had announced the two of them coming on together, feeling the tension rising in the studio as she did so, and could have collapsed in a heap when, instead of showing antagonism, Brad and Natalie had smiled warmly at each other before kissing and sitting down close together, their hands entwined, as Brad announced that the two of them had been reconciled for three days.
Abby had been rendered speechless by the announcement. All her carefully prepared questions had become null and void—questions she had spent hours labouring over in an effort to ensure she wouldn’t become the cause of further antagonism between the separated couple, intending to leave it to the two of them to set their own scene with as little prompting from her as possible. Brad’s announcement had made a complete nonsense of them.
She’d done her best to rally round at this sudden change of circumstances, congratulating them on their reconciliation, asking what their plans were for the future. A baby, for goodness’ sake; after all the public insults they had hurled at each other over the last six months!
Yes, Abby had done her best to keep the show alive and buzzing, but she had been aware that it had definitely lacked the sparkle and interest she had been hoping for when she’d invited the pair on her show.
And Gary Holmes’s snort of derision when she’d finally walked off the set had been enough to send her hurtling for the champagne bottle the moment she’d reached Dorothy and Paul’s house half an hour ago.
‘Go away,’ she told Max Harding a second time, turning away to lift up the champagne bottle, having no intention of crossing swords with him this evening.
Instead of complying with her request, she felt him take the champagne bottle from her hand. Her grip tightened but was no match for Max’s superior strength. The fluted champagne glass in her other hand was the next to go, before Max took her by one of her now empty hands and pulled her effortlessly to her feet.
‘You need food,’ he told her firmly as she began to protest. ‘Otherwise the headlines on tomorrow’s tabloids will read “Abby Freeman plastered”, accompanied by a photograph of you being carried out of here!’ He didn’t wait for any more arguments as he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and guided her into the adjoining room, where a table was set with a sumptuous buffet supper.
Not that Abby had been about to argue with him; the way she’d swayed unsteadily as she got to her feet, with the room tilting dizzily, was enough to tell her that food was exactly what she needed. Even if it was the last thing she wanted!
‘There you go.’ Max placed a heavily laden plate in her unresisting hand before turning to choose some food for himself.
Abby’s vision blurred as she looked down at the food. ‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ She sniffed, not sure she was going to be able to hold back the tears for much longer, despite blinking them away desperately.
He glanced at her, very tall and handsome in a black evening suit and snowy white shirt, although the dark hair
