The denial burst past her lips before she could stop it, her eyes wide and haunted as she faced him. ‘I’d never agree to anything like that,’ she told him fiercely.
‘No?’ He picked up his telephone receiver. ‘Very well then, I’ll instruct my solicitors to continue with the charges against your sister and to ensure that they get as much media coverage as possible …’
She knew he wasn’t bluffing. He had the power to do exactly what he was threatening. She could just imagine Mrs T’s face when she read what Camilla had done, and no doubt the press would have a field day making it sound even worse than it was. She was sorely tempted to go home and tell Camilla that she had been unsuccessful, but the thought of her sister’s hysterics; the knowledge that it could well mean the end of her engagement—because Mrs T. would put unholy pressure on David to break the engagement, she knew—overwhelmed her.
Forcing herself to think calmly and quickly, and to detach herself from what was happening she viewed her options, and could only come up with one solution. Damn Drake Harwood and damn Camilla. She would have to agree, she decided bitterly. She had no real choice. Let him take his photographs, but he’d never be able to use them in the way he’d planned.
Bitter anger tensed her muscles as she envisaged having to explain to Robert why she could not take the job … but he would understand. They wouldn’t want her on local television either … not once Drake Harwood had splashed her photograph all over his magazine. So what, she told herself hardily, she would be able to find another job in some other field where her public image wasn’t so important and at least she would have the satisfaction of defeating Drake Harwood. As he had said himself, photographs of her, as herself would have little appeal. As Emma Court she was no one and even though her mind and body screamed objections to what she would have to do she must ignore them.
‘Well?’
She faced him coolly, ‘I agree. but first I must have a document signed by you, clearing Camilla from any charges you might make against her.’
‘You shall have it. I do admire a woman of keen perception Emma Court. Somehow I thought you and I would be able to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.’
He was taunting her, Emma was sure of it, but she wasn’t going to respond.
‘How long will it take to get the document prepared and signed,’ she asked him coolly. She must know how much time she had. She daredn’t say that she wasn’t taking the job until she had that paper in her hand.
He was watching her face. ‘It will be given to you immediately after the photographic session.’
‘Do I have your word on that?’ Her eyes were hard, and she noted the dull flush colouring his cheek bones.
‘You have it,’ he told her crisply. ‘Now let’s get down to the arrangements shall we?’
He obviously didn’t believe in wasting any time Emma thought hollowly half an hour later as she left his office. Tomorrow she had to present herself at a studio whose address he had given her, and he had promised that she would also receive the documents releasing Camilla while she was there.
She went back to her hotel and booked in for another night. Then she telephoned home and told her father she had been delayed. ‘Camilla wants to speak to you,’ he told her.
Camilla sounded tense. ‘Did you see him?’ she demanded.
‘Yes, and he’s agreed to drop all the charges.’ There wasn’t much point in telling her sister the price she was having to pay for her freedom. There was nothing martyred or self-sacrificing in her decision; it was simply the only one she could make. She had grown so used to protecting Camilla that it was almost second nature.
She put off telephoning Robert, her interview with him was best left until she got home. Thank goodness she hadn’t actually signed a new contract. The television company would be more than pleased to let her go when they knew why she was leaving. Once her photograph had appeared in Drake Harwood’s obnoxious publication no serious television station would want to touch her with a bargepole. Bitterness welled up inside her, but she fought it down; at least she would have the satisfaction of defeating his main purpose and that, she sensed, was something very few people ever did. He had been quite cold and callous about his reasons for what he was doing; her thoughts and feelings meant nothing to him and neither did the fact that he was destroying her career. She had sensed beneath the mockery a fine contempt of the female sex, and she shuddered inwardly, trying not to think about the ordeal to come.
That evening after she had had her bath she forced herself to study her nude reflection in the bedroom mirror. Her body was slender and well formed, unmistakably feminine; the thought of exposing it to the eyes of some jaded photographer made her shudder with distaste. If only she could blot the whole thing out of her mind somehow … but that wasn’t possible.
Neither was sleep; she lay awake for what felt like hours, prey to her thoughts and too-active imagination. It was difficult to visualise anything more degrading than what she was going to have to do, and her pride rebelled fiercely against it, but there was no escape.
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