presenter was getting rather personal about a contestant who wasn’t doing very well.
She made her tea and hoisted herself onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar, the cookery book laid flat in front of her, and started dunking biscuits into her mug before sucking the chocolate off. Nobody was here to catch her, were they?
Now, what could she cook Mr Big Shot for dinner on his first night back? It had to be something impressive, something to make him want to hire her permanently when the three-month trial period was up.
Ellie suspected she wouldn’t have been offered the job if the man in question hadn’t been a) Charlie’s cousin and b) desperate for someone to start as soon as possible. Her new boss was something big in the music industry, apparently. She thought the name had sounded vaguely familiar, but she really didn’t keep up to date with that sort of thing any more.
Her oldest friend, Ginny, had actually seemed impressed when Ellie had made the announcement about her new job. She’d gushed and twittered and gone on about how lucky Ellie was. Ellie hadn’t stopped her, glad that Ginny had been too distracted to ask any difficult questions about the real reason for Ellie’s sudden need to uproot herself from her comfortable little life and flee.
But she wasn’t going to think about that at the moment. For once she was grateful for her brain’s tendency to flit onto a new subject without a backward glance, and turned her whole attention to the colourful book on the counter in front of her.
Now, was squid-ink pasta really as stupendous as those TV chefs made out? Or did they just use it because it made the pictures in their glossy cookbooks look good?
The cooking part of the job would be fun. She’d always enjoyed it, and had even taken a few courses at the local adult education college to hone her techniques before Chloe had been born. In the last couple of years it had become almost an obsession. But obsessions were something she could excel in these days, and since she’d been out of the workforce and had a lot of time on her hands it had been a perfect way to keep herself occupied. Funnily, it was the one skill she seemed to have clung on to without any deficit since the accident. She didn’t know why. Perhaps that knack of combining flavours and textures was held in a different part of the brain—one that hadn’t been shaken and swollen and bruised as the car had rolled and crumpled around her.
There it was again, that feeling that the world was retreating, leaving her in an echoey bubble all on her own. Her fingers automatically found her locket while she tried to distract herself with the book. Initially the print blurred and the pictures refused to stay in focus, but she blinked twice and forced her eyes to work in unison, and eventually everything slid back to normal.
The television was still on low in the background and Ellie glanced at it. The quiz show she’d had half an ear on was over and something else had started. It looked like some red carpet thing that was obviously going to clog up the TV schedule for the rest of the evening. An eager reporter in a low-cut top clutched her microphone and tried not to let on she was shivering in the brisk March wind.
Just then a graphic flashed up at the bottom of the screen. Ellie did a double-take, then lurched forward in an effort to get closer to the television—anything to help her unscramble the images swarming up her optic nerve and into her brain.
‘That’s—that’s him!’
The book lay on the counter, forgotten, and her finger, which had been scanning a list of ingredients, now hovered uselessly in mid-air. She jumped off the stool, walked over to the little TV and used that very same finger to drum on the volume button.
‘Mark Wilder’, the caption at the bottom of the screen said.
Her new boss.
Crumbs, she could see why Ginny had gone all twittery now. He certainly was very good-looking, all ruffled dark hair and perfect teeth. Not that those things really mattered when it came down to forging a long-lasting relationship. Nice dental work amounted to nothing if the man in question turned out to be a shallow, self-centred waste of space. She was much more interested in what a man was like on the inside.
She looked at Mark Wilder again, really looked at him. He was about the same age as her. Mid-thirties? Possibly older if he was aging well—and, let’s face it, his sort usually did. But who was he beneath the crisp white shirt and the designer suit? More importantly, what would he be like to work for? She stood, hands on hips, and frowned a little. When Charlie had phoned to offer this position she’d been too excited that her plan was coming to fruition to think much about her future employer. He’d been more of an escape route than a person, really.
Suddenly a woman slid into shot beside him—early twenties, gravity-defying bust and attire that, if it stretched in the wash, might just qualify as a dress.
Ellie sighed.
Oh, he was that kind of man. How disappointing.
The reporter in the cleavage-revealing top didn’t seem to be bothered, though. She lurched at him from behind the metal barrier. ‘Mr Wilder! Melissa Morgan from Channel Six!’
Oh, yes. That was her name.
This should be interesting. From what Ellie remembered, this woman had a reputation for asking awkward questions, being a little bit sassy with her interviewees. It made for great celebrity soundbites. You never knew what juicy little secrets she might get her victims to accidentally reveal.
Wilder spotted the reporter and strode over to her, his movements lean and easy. In the crowd, a couple of hundred pairs of female eyes swivelled to track his progress. Except, ironically, those of his girlfriend. She was looking straight at the camera lens.
Even the normally cool reporter was fawning all over him. Not that Wilder seemed to mind. His eyes held a mischievous twinkle as he waited for her to ask her question.
‘Pull yourself together, woman!’ Ellie mumbled as she brushed biscuit crumbs off the cookery book with the side of her hand.
Melissa Morgan blushed and asked her question in a husky voice. ‘Are you confident your newest client, Kat De Souza, will be picking up the award for best female newcomer this evening?’
Go on, Ellie silently urged. Prove me wrong. Be charming and gracious and modest.
He increased the wattage on his smile. The reporter looked as if she was about to melt into a puddle of pure hormones.
‘I have every confidence in Kat,’ he said in a warm, deep voice, appearing desperately serious. But then his eyes did that twinkly thing again. ‘Of course, having superior management doesn’t hurt.’
How did he do that? Special eye drops?
Of course the reporter fell for it. She practically tripped over her own tongue as she asked the next question. Wilder, in turn, lapped up the attention, deliberately flirting with her—well, maybe not flirting, exactly, but he had to be doing something to make her go all giggly like that.
Ellie reached for another digestive without taking her eyes off the television, and knocked the packet onto the floor. The man seemed to be enjoying the fact that a couple of million viewers were catching every second of his very public ego massage. And what was even more annoying was that he batted each of the reporter’s questions away with effortless charm, never losing his cool for an instant.
There was no end to the reporter’s gushing. ‘I’m sure you
