flooding the office with tears every time she reads press cuttings about Jack and his glamorous girlfriends.’
‘Well, I can see he’s a very handsome and charming man, but I’m simply not interested,’ Laura had told her with a bright, confident smile. Having fallen in love with an engineering student, Bryan Turner, during her last year at university, she’d known that she was completely immune to her new employer—however attractive he might be.
Unfortunately, Bryan had proved to be far less sure of his feelings. After joining a large firm of civil engineers, he’d been sent abroad a year later to deal with the construction of a large hotel in the centre of Bangkok. There, he’d quickly succumbed to the pleasures and distractions of an Oriental way of life—only bothering to inform his fiancée that he had met and married a beautiful Thai girl some months after the ceremony had taken place.
Quite convinced that her heart was irretrievably broken, Laura had buried herself in work, grimly concentrating on her career. Looking after and caring for her clients had helped to assuage some of her deep unhappiness—until, some six months later, she’d been both amazed and somewhat ashamed to discover that her heart hadn’t been broken after all.
As a result of her having become totally absorbed and single-minded about her job, Laura’s hard work and increasing success had not gone unnoticed. Rapidly promoted by Jack to a position of responsibility within the firm, she’d found herself increasingly in close contact with her employer. And, although for a long time she’d struggled against acknowledging the fact, Laura had gradually realised that she was in serious trouble.
Almost without realising it, she’d fallen deeply in love with Jack Wilder—a dangerously contagious disease, which also seemed to have infected half the women of his acquaintance. However, since she’d known that the likelihood of Jack returning her love was less than zero, she’d been determined not to succumb to what could only be a hopeless and disastrous state of affairs.
Ever since both her parents had died, when she was only sixteen, Laura had become used to talking over problems with her older sister. However, confiding the truth about her feelings for Jack had merely resulted in Amy’s practical, level-headed advice that she should leave the firm as soon as possible and get a job in another agency. ‘After all, love, what’s the point in giving yourself a whole load of grief?’ she’d said.
Unfortunately, and despite knowing that her sister was right, Laura hadn’t been able to bring herself to follow such a sensible course of action. However, over the past two years she’d always taken the greatest care to conceal the true depth of her feelings, both from her friends and workmates as well as her employer.
It hadn’t been an ideal situation, of course, but she was certain that she’d managed to convince everyone that she had no romantic interest in her boss. And there’d certainly been no problem when she’d accompanied Jack to other film locations, in such diverse places as Arizona, Spain and the Ukraine. So why had everything suddenly gone completely haywire in Tahiti...?
‘In fact, once he’s calmed down, I’m sure that Jack will see that he’s treated you very badly.’
‘Hmm...?’ She raised her head, looking blankly at Amy for a moment. ‘I’m sorry...I was miles away,’ she confessed with a heavy sigh.
‘I was just saying that it’s not the end of the world. Of course, you shouldn’t have lost your temper, but sooner or later Jack is bound to realise that he is mostly to blame for what happened today.’
‘Fat chance!’ Laura gave a derisory snort of grim laughter. ‘Even if he does eventually forgive me—and I’m quite certain that he never will—I still don’t have a job. And not much prospect of getting another one, either,’ she added glumly. ‘If only I hadn’t bought that smart, glamorous apartment in Soho! Even if Jack does give me a generous pay-off, without regular employment I’ll never be able to keep up the mortgage payments. Maybe...’ she looked hopefully around the large, superbly equipped kitchen ‘...I could come and work for you...?’
‘No way!’ Amy laughed and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, love. You know I’ll do anything I can to help, but you’ve never been interested in cooking, and it’s a bit too late to start now. Besides, there’s a world of difference between messing around in your own kitchen and catering full-time for businessmen’s lunches in the City.’
‘Yes, I know. But...’
‘The idea is a complete non-starter,’ her sister said firmly. ‘I can handle the amount of work I’ve got at the moment, mainly because it fits in so well with the children’s school timetable. But, if I took you on, I’d also have to expand the business in order to pay you a living wage. Which in turn would mean spending less time with the boys. And, quite apart from my own feelings, I also know that Tom wouldn’t be at all happy about the situation.’
‘You’re quite right,’ Laura agreed quickly, ashamed of having been so selfish and only concerned with her own problems. Amy’s husband, Tom, was a very kind and easygoing, if somewhat absent-minded history professor at London University. But even he could be expected to cut up rough if his small sons began to see less of their mother.
‘However, I can probably help out with your mortgage—for a few months, anyway.’
‘Don’t be silly!’ Laura protested. ‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you do anything of the kind. I was just worried about what was going to happen in the future, that’s all.’
‘Well, I think you ought to keep on working in your own profession. You’ve been really happy and successful at looking after your clients. So why turn your back on the theatrical world just because you’ve had a row with Jack Wilder?’
‘Because I’m quite certain that he’ll do his best to see I’m blacklisted,’ Laura told her grimly. ‘I know Jack—he never forgives or forgets an injury. Just look at what happened to Donald Hunt,’ she added as she slipped off the stool and made her way to the door.
‘Donald Hunt?’
Laura shrugged. ‘It’s ancient history now, of course, but he was one of Jack’s original partners in the agency—together with their accountant, David Martin, who died in a car crash some years ago. Nobody knows exactly what went wrong between Donald Hunt and Jack. However, it’s rumoured that there was an almighty bust-up because Donald had a torrid affair with Melissa Grant, who was Jack’s wife at the time.’
‘I never knew that Jack had been married to Melissa Grant!’ Amy exclaimed in amazement. ‘She’s a wonderful actress, of course—and stunningly beautiful. Isn’t she starring in that award-winning play at the National Theatre? We’ve been trying to get hold of some tickets, but it’s completely sold out for the next three months.’
‘Yes, well...dear Melissa—who may be beautiful, but is said to be a first-class bitch, and has just left her fifth husband—was apparently married to Jack for only a very short time before becoming fatally involved with Donald. The story is that Jack not only divorced his wife and dissolved the partnership but also made certain that no other agency would give Donald Hunt a job.’
‘Are you sure about this?’
Laura shrugged. ‘Well, I must admit that I don’t know the full facts. But it seems that fairly soon after Donald and Jack split up Donald inherited a fortune from his father—who’d apparently been a big cheese in the building-construction business. However, the real moral of this story is: if he hadn’t had a family business to fall back on, Donald would have been left high and dry—totally up the creek
