discretion works both ways,’ Macy said seriously. ‘I don’t tell, you don’t tell, nobody gets hurt. That means no boasting in the locker room, no drunken confessions.’
‘Of course not,’ said Eddie.
‘You don’t want your wife to know. And I don’t want people to think I slept my way into this job. That’s not what this was about.’
‘Not in the least,’ Eddie assured her. ‘So does that mean you’ll come on board? You’ll do the show?’
‘That depends,’ said Macy. ‘I want equity. You’ll have to negotiate the package with Paul. But if the price is right … yeah. I’ll do it. I think the idea has promise. And, you know. I like you.’
‘I like you too,’ said Eddie truthfully.
Macy fell asleep almost instantly. She’s like a man in lots of ways, Eddie thought, although thankfully not in all.
Eddie lay awake for a long time staring at the ceiling, his mind racing. He waited to be hit by an onslaught of guilt, but it never came. The truth was he’d enjoyed tonight. More than that, in some primal, deep-rooted way, he’d needed it.
He would not be unfaithful again. What happened with Macy had been a one-off. It had happened far away, in another world, and his wife would never know about it.
Eddie loved Annabel. As soon as she started sleeping with him again, he would become a one-man woman, the loyal, loving husband she deserved. Tomorrow was another day.
By the time he woke up the next morning, Macy Johanssen had gone.
Still in bed, Eddie picked up the telephone and left a message for Laura Baxter.
‘I’ve found her,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I’ve found our girl.’
Slipping out of Eddie’s bed at 5 a.m., Macy only took twenty minutes to get to her house off Laurel Canyon. In the dawn light, with no traffic on the roads, Los Angeles looked strangely peaceful, slumbering softly in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, beneath the gently swaying palms. Closing the electric wooden gates behind her, Macy walked into her kitchen, kicked off her shoes and exhaled, still buzzing from her night with Eddie.
Macy’s house was her sanctuary. Like her it was small but perfectly formed, a light-filled haven with white wooden walls, simple antique furniture and a crisp yet feminine feel. Mismatched jugs full of peonies and roses and sweet williams crowded every available surface, and vintage linens on the bed and table gave the place warmth. But the overwhelming impression was one of tidiness and calm. Everything in its place and a place for everything; Macy was a big believer in order and control, perhaps because her childhood had been complete chaos.
After her father walked out when Macy was three, her mother had turned to drink. Macy learned early on to fend for herself. Her formative years were spent shuttling between her mom’s house, during Karin Johanssen’s intermittent periods of sobriety, and a string of different foster homes across the LA area. For the most part Macy’s foster parents had been decent people. It wasn’t as if she’d been abused or anything. But there was no stability, no order. And so Macy had made her own, working like a demon at school, eventually getting a place at Yale and putting herself through college with a string of loans, grants and scholarships, all of which she’d researched and applied for herself.
The biggest blow of Macy’s life had come at the end of her first year in college, when her mom died suddenly of a heart attack aged forty-seven. Only four people came to the funeral in LA. Two from her mom’s AA group, one neighbour, and one from the funeral home in Encino where Karin Johanssen had been laid to rest.
After finishing her degree – if TV didn’t work out, at least she would have a first-class education to fall back on – Macy moved back to Los Angeles and begun pounding on doors. With her beauty, wit, charisma and brains she was a natural as a presenter, and agents were soon lining up to sign her. Macy chose Paul Meyer to represent her, because he was honest and didn’t pull his punches. She was still only twenty-three when Paul landed her a primetime, network gig, fronting the gameshow Grapevine for ABC. It was a huge break for a relative unknown. But as Paul had warned her at the time, one hit show did not necessarily guarantee a lasting career.
When Grapevine came off air, Macy suddenly found herself jobless. She waited confidently for more network offers to pour in. But as the months passed, her confidence began to wane. When Paul suggested she take a meeting with Eddie Wellesley, Macy had shut him down cold. She wanted another primetime show like Grapevine, not some two-bit gig in England with no names attached.
‘But that’s the whole point,’ Paul had told her. ‘You would be the name attached. You have nothing currently shooting here, Macy. That is the reality.’
Macy had frowned. ‘Yes, but Grapevine … ’
‘… is over. Your last presenting gig finished almost six months ago. You need this.’
Macy had begged to differ. But clearly Paul and Eddie had conspired not to take no for an answer. After the incredible night she’d just spent with Eddie, Macy figured she should be glad about that at least.
Now, sitting down at her desk, with its glorious views over the canyon, she turned on her Mac and checked her emails.
Nothing work related. One from her trainer. Five from Chris, the lovely but far too demanding boyfriend Macy had been forced to get rid of last month. Chris had been an experiment, a toe in the water to test how it might be in a ‘real’ relationship. It wasn’t a success. From now on she was back to her comfort zone of one-night stands. Life was enough of a struggle taking care of oneself. She didn’t need dependants.
Finally one email that made her jaw tense and her stomach lurch.
Sender: [email protected]
Again. The bastard really didn’t give up.
Furiously, Macy deleted the message, unread.
Her ‘father’ – he didn’t deserve the name, but Macy didn’t know what else to call him – had first attempted to get in contact last year. Per Johanssen, the man who had heartlessly deserted Macy’s mother and destroyed her life, who had never sent so much as a Christmas card to Macy growing up, or lifted a finger to help when social services had taken her from her mom. That man now wanted to get to know his daughter. Now she had become famous and wealthy, Per had apparently rediscovered his paternal gene.
Macy tried hard not to hate men. She might keep them at a distance, emotionally, but she loved male company, the male sense of humour, and she very much appreciated the joys of having an accomplished lover in her bed, on as regular a basis as possible. But just thinking about her father filled her with an anger and loathing so wild, so intense, she scared herself.
How dare he email her?
How dare he inject his poison into her life, her inbox, her home? Who the hell did he think he was?
She switched off the computer feeling as if she’d just been molested.
Screw it, she thought. I will go to bloody England.
She trusted Paul Meyer and she liked Eddie Wellesley. That was as good a start as any. And she needed to get away, from Chris, from the misery
