Buch lesen: «Man vs. Socialite»

ONE

The thing about smartphones was that when you were public enemy number one you could pick up all derogatory comments about you in one place. Convenient, not.

A post online...

Like to see @evieITgirl eat roasted rat. Where does she get off bad-mouthing @SurvivalJackT? #shallow

New Social Network group...

Sack Evie Staverton-Lynch from reality TV show Miss Knightsbridge. 15000 likes and counting.

Video currently going viral...

Watch It-girl Evangeline Staverton-Lynch accuse TV survival expert Jack Trent of sham expeditions.

The hit counter was heading towards six figures and the hateful mobile-phone clip had only been posted two days ago.

Crisis talks were called that for a reason. Evie turned off her phone with its tirade of abuse and sipped the horrible coffee in the office of the one person who might be able to get her out of this hole she’d dug for herself.

Chester Smith, PR to the stars, to whom she’d pledged a percentage of her income for the foreseeable future and whose manipulation of the media was responsible for her meteoric rise from insignificant socialite with too much time on her hands to darling of the reality-show-viewing public, sat on the opposite side of the glass desk. Signed glossy framed photos beamed from the office walls showing TV stars past and present whose über-successful careers had been managed by him. The desk was spread with a selection of the day’s tabloids. She could see grainy stills of her own face on the front page of at least three of them. Chester tossed his perfectly styled quiff, pulled out a tablet, flipped back the gaudy cover and tapped ‘play’ on the mobile-phone video, as if Evie hadn’t had it playing on a humiliating loop in her head for the last forty-eight hours.

There she was, picture quality not great but still perfectly unmistakeable, her favourite designer clutch on the pristine white tablecloth next to her water glass. Her father, stiff-backed, sat opposite her with his back to the camera. In the background she could see the other people lunching earlier this week at the glossy Knightsbridge eaterie, a popular celebrity hangout. And wasn’t that exactly why she’d chosen that venue when her father had demanded they meet? Her father never suggested or asked when it came to seeing Evie, he demanded. When he said lunch, you said how many courses. And if she was going to sit through a couple of hours of criticism she might as well do it on her own territory, somewhere she’d at last begun to feel she fitted in.

She’d even had a couple of fans of the show interrupt the lunch to ask for photos. Her father’s disapproval had surged towards breaking point each time—and hadn’t that rather been the point? She might not be appreciated by him, might in fact be pretty much insignificant these days unless she somehow showed him up, but at least here she felt as if she was among people who liked her, even if it was the carefully manufactured prom-queen version of her they saw on screen.

After twenty-odd years of Evie feeling inconsequential and pointless, the public interest and support that followed her appearance in hit reality TV show Miss Knightsbridge had been the stuff of dreams.

Turned out it was the fickle kind of support that could be undone with one stupid wrong move.

* * *

Chester fiddled with the tablet until the clip was full-screen at maximum sound.

‘No, I don’t watch your show,’ her father’s deep clipped voice boomed out. ‘I have absolutely no desire to watch you make a spectacle of yourself on national television. I find it inexplicable that the viewing public would have the slightest interest in how you spend your time.’ There was a pause as her father took a sip of his white wine. She could see her own smile fold in on itself on the opposite side of the table. ‘Should I happen to put the television on, I would be watching the other side. Jack Trent’s Survival Camp Extreme.’

There was a pause in the conversation. The background buzz of the restaurant could be heard in the gap. Evie wasn’t sure even now which revelation had rendered her speechless—the simple fact that her father watched television at all these days or his traitorous allegiance to the rival show in the ratings to her own.

After nigh on twenty years of trying and failing, at first to please him and eventually just to interest him, you’d think she would have developed the skin of a rhino by now. This last year the sudden sensation of being liked, of being popular, had been like a dream. After being unexpectedly scouted by the TV production company for Miss Knightsbridge, Evie had found that public affection had even more unexpectedly followed. Interviews and magazine photo shoots poured in as the popularity of the show climbed. And on the back of it all she was just launching her very own jewellery line, a dream she’d secretly nurtured for years but had never before had the confidence to take forward. A new business. Surely that would impress her father. The hoped-for happy response to the news that she would be making a living for herself now instead of cruising along on the cushion of her allowance was instead lost to his disapproval of the TV show. She wondered for a moment what job she would have to do to elicit his good opinion. Brain surgeon, perhaps.

‘Making a spectacle of yourself for all to see,’ he was saying. ‘After the upbringing you’ve had.’

Heaven forbid that he might miss an opportunity to mention her upbringing, the implication ever-present that she should be grateful she still had one, never mind that it had been devoid of anything really except for his money and use of his name. Love and affection had been laughed out of the room from the moment her mother died, no matter how hard she tried to earn them. Her membership of the family had only ever been an honorary one, extended to her for the sake of her mother’s feelings when she was alive and her mother’s memory now she was dead.

‘Thank goodness your mother isn’t here to see it,’ he added.

That last comment hit her low in the stomach and took her breath away even when she watched it back, knowing it was coming, because perhaps the most delicious part of designing her jewellery line had been imagining the glee her mother might have felt about it. Her mum had loved costume jewellery, letting six-year-old Evie play dress-up with her box of sparkly cocktail rings and beads. The memory was a treasured one, a sparkling one among many, many later memories that were grey with obedience, routine and loneliness.

And that more than anything had triggered the thundering, ill-judged lashing-out that followed.

Now, in the cold light of a few days later, Evie’s insides churned in anticipatory mortification at what came next on the tape.

Her own voice kicked in on the video, and did she really sound that pinched and snobby? Another surge of hot shame climbed her neck to burn in her face.

‘Jack Trent’s ex-army, isn’t he?’ she heard herself snap. ‘So it comes as no surprise that you’d prefer watching his show to mine.’

She’d had her fill of military-style closing of ranks growing up. After her mother had gone she simply hadn’t possessed enough female clout by herself to counteract the cold and regimented male-dominated life that was left. The new revelation that apparently a background in the armed forces ranked above his regard for her raised her temper to even dizzier heights.

‘Trent’s show is a documentary,’ her father snapped. ‘Completely different. It has substance. Five minutes of your fly-on-the-wall was enough. It’s nothing but vacuous rubbish. You’ve turned the family into a laughing stock.’

The family. Not our family. Figure of speech? Or dead giveaway about how he regarded her? She seemed to see her exclusion in his every nuance these days. The difference between her and her brother Will that had never mattered when her mother was there to provide the link that held them together. Half-brother, she corrected now in her mind. She was the cuckoo in the nest since her mother had gone, no one left any more to justify her place there. The sadness of that thought had brought a sudden burst of irrational jealous hostility towards Jack Trent and his stupid survival skills. She gathered all the hurt and misery and frustration together and verbalised it, and unfortunately Jack Trent, whom she’d never met, happened to be inadvertently in the firing line.

‘Substance?’ she snarled. ‘I can’t believe you buy into all that. Do you really think he’s sleeping under the stars eating barbecued rat? When the camera switches off he’ll be off to the nearest luxury hotel to sleep on duck-down pillows and scoff à la carte.’

An audible sucking in of breath from Chester brought her right back to the horrible present.

‘You know, it doesn’t matter how many times I hear that, it doesn’t lose its shock value,’ he breathed, tapping the tablet to pause the video. A grainy freeze-frame of her own miserable and indignant expression filled the screen. Her head had started to ache.

‘What were you thinking? You’ve probably ruined your own career in a couple of sentences and you’ve dragged Jack Trent down with you. The production company are apoplectic.’

‘It was a private opinion,’ she protested, the injustice of the whole thing spiking her anger. In actual fact it hadn’t even been an opinion, it had been a lashing-out, no time to be held back by a little thing like the fact it wasn’t true. ‘Jack Trent’s show just happened to be the one my father mentioned he watched instead of mine. It was a knee-jerk reaction, not meant for public viewing.’

‘What you failed to consider is that the production company who make Miss Knightsbridge also make Jack Trent’s Survival Camp Extreme. The tabloids are implying that means it isn’t an off-the-cuff bitchy comment, that you must have some insider information.’ Chester leaned in. ‘That Jack Trent really is eating hotel food instead of living off nature’s bounty.’

Not one to let up for a moment, he swiped the screen a couple of times and brought up the social network group page she’d seen earlier.

‘Jack Trent’s fan base are extremely loyal,’ he said. ‘“Get evil Evie off our TV screens,”’ he read aloud. ‘Now sixteen thousand likes and counting—’

Unlike her fans. She had yet to read as much as a single supportive comment. A spike of miserable envy jabbed her in the stomach at the depth of public affection for Jack Trent.

She put her head in her hands and stared down at the glass table top in despair.

‘Please, I don’t want to hear any more.’

Now she wished she’d bitten her tongue before she’d spoken, but her subconscious mind had simply taken over in that moment of stress. Jack Trent was an ex-soldier, bound to be another cold and detached military man. He was basically her father minus thirty or so years, and so he happened to be a handy by-proxy target.

Because even after all these years of indifference at best and criticism at worst, Evie still couldn’t bring herself to diss her father. Not to his face anyway.

Unfortunately she hadn’t reckoned for a moment on having her comments overheard by the world at large. And apparently an immediate apology via social media just didn’t cut the mustard when an inflammatory comment went viral.

‘In the public consciousness right now you are pond life, sweetie.’ Chester pointed at her with his pen. ‘And worse than that, you’re pond life with money. Public support has been based around fascination with your ditsy-but-sweet image, your how-the-other-half-live fashion sense and your socialite mates. That kind of thing doesn’t hold much water now you’ve bad-mouthed a national treasure. They think they’ve seen the real you, and, honey, it ain’t pretty.’

He tapped the screen again and shoved it in front of Evie’s face. She batted the tablet aside, but unfortunately not before she’d seen the comment at the top of the list.

@evieITgirl lives in luxury. @SurvivalJackT fought for his country #wasteofspace

She clapped her hands over her eyes and pressed her palms against her eyelids. On the opposite side of the table criticism carried on. Unfortunately she didn’t have enough hands to cover her ears too.

* * *

Jack Trent gritted his teeth and climbed out of the taxi at the glossy offices of Purple Productions, the usual sense of resignation kicking in at time required to be spent schmoozing in the city, which he considered to be time completely wasted. He wondered if he would ever in his life get the train into London without then counting the hours until he could get the train back out again.

Back in the wilderness at the outward-bound centre he owned in the Scottish Highlands, fine-tuning preparations were unexpectedly on hold for his latest venture, one which for the first time meant more than just a business opportunity based on his military skills. This new initiative was close to his heart. He had more invested in it than just time and money. The sudden requirement to leave and come to talk to suits would have had his mood on a knife edge at the best of times, let alone when he was on the cusp of such an important new venture.

Yet he came all the same, because the publicity he’d gained since his adventures had been televised had given him clout that was worth something. His survival-course business had skyrocketed. A meeting here, a party or a photo opportunity there, and now he was at a point where he could kick his actions up to another level, beyond just fund-raising. His carefully devised courses for kids were on the brink of being a reality, a way at last to make a real difference that might compensate for his past mistakes. He hadn’t needed to come to the city that often to keep his agent happy and his popularity high. And with the launch of this new course he needed that popularity more than ever.

The unexpected revelation that the Internet was awash with a rumour that his notoriously tough survival-skills documentaries were actually bullshit was so unbelievable that at first he thought it was a joke. Surfing the Internet wasn’t at the top of his priority list at any time, certainly not when he was in the middle of nowhere risk-assessing potential sites for river crossings. As a result the rumour was at full pelt in the media before he knew a thing about it. A phone call from one of his employees informing him that he was currently trending online confirmed that, no, unfortunately, it was perfectly true. He’d watched the offending video and he’d had plenty of time on the train to read about the backlash in the press, invariably accompanied by an endless collection of glamour shots of Evangeline Staverton-Lynch.

By the time he reached London he had all the sorry details and if the situation wasn’t rectified to his satisfaction, heads would roll. No matter how pretty they might be.

* * *

Evie got into the car next to Chester the following morning with her head held high, hair and make-up perfect, her pink designer suit carefully chosen because it was the furthest thing in her wardrobe from demure black. She’d had plenty of time to get her frame of mind right because she’d barely slept, not that anyone else needed to know that. She’d grimly painted out the dark shadows under her eyes with concealer and added a slick of pink lip gloss. Ready to channel defiance, because in her experience contrite got you nowhere.

The part of her that hadn’t slept wanted to grovel apologies at Jack Trent and then hide in her little flat in Chelsea for possibly the rest of her life. She refused obstinately to listen to that Evie. That Evie was the same one who even after twenty years still wanted her mum, who’d ached to go home when she was dropped at boarding school and who’d tried everything she could think of to secure her father’s good opinion. Instead, his particular blend of parental indifference had spiralled down the years into disapproval until the only thing that seemed to spike his interest was a climbing scale of outrageous or shocking behaviour. And so that was what she’d delivered. In spades.

After finding that he wouldn’t bother turning up at school for shows or open days but would descend on the place in full and scary military uniform when she was reprimanded for smoking and for dancing on the tables during prep, a brand-new Evie had come to the fore. This new incarnation was a master at I-don’t-care. And she’d had her feet under the table for so long now that the Evie who felt mortified and guilt-ridden at the grief she’d caused Jack Trent most certainly wasn’t about to surface and take the flak.

It was a beautiful spring morning, cold but sunny. Perfect for a spot of shopping in South West London and then maybe coffee at a pavement café. Chance would be a fine thing. The way things were right now any beverage drunk in public might very well be tipped over her head by an indignant pensioner. Jack Trent’s supporters were everywhere and age was no boundary.

‘We’re meeting the executive producer of Miss Knightsbridge and some of the production team,’ Chester briefed her as the car nosed its way through the London morning traffic. ‘They want to talk through the situation, explore some options.’

‘You mean they want to sack me.’

His lack of reply didn’t instil confidence.

She followed Chester through the glossy reception of Purple Productions, its walls festooned with glossy stills from its string of über-successful shows. Behind the reception desk she saw a shot taken from Miss Knightsbridge of herself walking down Brompton Road with armfuls of designer carrier bags. Unfortunately a few rows along her eyes fell on a photo of Jack Trent, up to his neck in hideous river water as he manoeuvred his way with a machete through dense reeds and river debris. His face was smeared with mud. Her stomach gave a nervous churn.

She could feel the disapproving eyes of the rubbernecking office staff boring into her as she walked. It felt as if she were about to be lynched. Right now she wished she’d bitten off her own tongue before she’d spoken so recklessly.

It was immediately obvious on entering the boardroom why the typing pool had been looking at her as if she were an interesting new species of worm. Jack Trent was leaning back in his chair on the opposite side of the meeting table with an expression on his face that implied he’d quite like to see her head on a spike. Her stomach plummeted like a stone. The photo in Reception and the glimpses she’d caught of him on TV or in the odd magazine hadn’t done him justice. He had the broadest chest of any man she’d ever seen, solid muscle beneath the tailored shoulders of his dark jacket. His light brown hair was very short, not much more than military buzz cut, and his face sported a small scar high on the left chiselled cheekbone and a tan the depth of which could only be achieved from spending days on end outdoors without wearing anything so namby-pamby as sunblock. He met her gaze with green eyes that might have been stomach-melting if they hadn’t been furious. He was without a shred of doubt gorgeous eye candy of the highest order. If you liked the cold-hearted, detached, wants-to-kill-you soldier look, that was.

She didn’t.

Also around the table she recognised members of the Miss Knightsbridge production team. Hostility radiated from them and she curled her hands into damp fists at her sides and averted her eyes from the antagonistic expressions. She’d made a stupid smartass comment; she’d never meant it to be repeated publicly; it was a mistake, nothing more. She did not deserve to be hung out to dry. She gritted her teeth, determined not to give away that she was upset. She would brazen it out, exactly the way she always did. Defiant brave face, that was the thing. Tried and tested, relied on throughout her life.

Even so, humiliation bubbled hotly upward from her neck and and boiled in her cheeks as she took a chair as close to the door as possible, in case the brave-face thing didn’t work and the suppressed urge to bolt and just hide for the next ten years in her flat in Chelsea got the better of her.

* * *

Jack Trent watched Evie walk into the boardroom with her perfectly coiffed head held high. She wore her hair loose, its glossy waves threaded with perfect tones of toffee and gold that looked deliciously touchable but which surely depended on endless wasted hours in a top salon. Her eyes were wide and baby blue, there was a tiny spray of freckles on her nose, and her mouth with its deliciously full lower lip was painted pale pink. She was the perfect example of English rose. She was tall and slender in the beautifully cut pink suit with short skirt and his mind insisted on treating him to a delectable flash of the photos he’d seen of her in the press on the way here, wearing a silk slip and a very cute smile.

He looked away, not without some difficulty, and refocused his mind carefully on the unbelievable mess she’d single-handedly made of his reputation with a couple of sentences.

‘Jack, this is Evangeline Staverton-Lynch,’ the company PR said at his elbow.

He took a breath and met her gaze across the table. She held his eyes with her own clear blue defiant ones, and if he’d been expecting a grovelling apology he’d apparently be waiting a long time. Clearly she was just another vacuous self-obsessed TV wannabe—only interested in her own fame and fortune. He knew the type only too well.

She nodded at him from across the table and beamed a perfect smile as if she hadn’t thrown the survival of his pet project into the balance. Four years ago this month since he’d left the army, and it had taken this long to reach a point where he could maybe begin to siphon off some of the guilt at what had happened while he’d been away. He’d believed enlisting would be the answer to all his problems, and it had been. His own slate wiped clean, a fresh start for him. The payoff had been the life left behind for his mother and sister and the nightmare Helen had drifted into without him there to look out for her. Too late now to change the past for Helen, but his work could still make a difference to others like her. He’d put his heart and soul into it and now, thanks to this diva, it looked as if the whole thing was going to fail before it even got off the ground.

‘I should be in Scotland right now,’ he snapped before anyone else could speak. ‘Working on the final kit list for my kids’ twenty-four-hour survival-skills course. It’s meant to be piloting in schools next month. I’ve been working towards this for the past two years, it’s the sole reason I’ve kept up the TV shows, and now I find the whole thing is hanging by a thread because of some libellous comment made by you. You don’t even know me.’

Evie straightened her back and pressed her teeth together to keep the not-my-fault smile in place. It would have been so much easier somehow if his TV show were the limit of his remit. A small twist of envy knotted her stomach at the thought of his survival business, at his drive and direction in life. The Jack Trent that existed outside the TV screen clearly had a lot more substance than Evie Staverton-Lynch did when you stripped away her own media image.

She resorted to the method that had dug her out of many a scrape throughout school: do not admit responsibility. And followed it up by pasting on a smile and mustering up as much charm as she could manage.

She leaned forward in her chair and offered him a demure smile.

‘Look, Jack—can I call you Jack?’

He stared at her incredulous but she carried on regardless.

‘This has all been a vile misunderstanding. It was a private comment, taken completely out of context. Filmed without my knowledge or consent. Honestly, these people have no respect for anyone’s privacy. But please don’t worry.’ She sat back and nodded reassuringly as if she had the whole ridiculous debacle under some level of control. In her dreams. ‘I issued an immediate retraction via social media.’

‘Are you having some kind of a laugh?’ he shouted. ‘A retraction via social media? Too little, too bloody late.’ He held her gaze angrily until she finally dropped her eyes. ‘Half the country have heard you bad-mouthing me. The papers are full of it. Mud like that sticks.’

She pushed her hands into her hair and stared down at the table.

‘I’m truly sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you but I can’t be responsible for something filmed without my knowledge. It wasn’t directed at you. I was having an argument with my father and I spoke without thinking. If I could take it back I would. If there’s anything I can do to fix the situation, I will.’

She smiled winningly at him. He scowled back.

‘Delighted to hear you say that, because we have a solution.’ The executive producer at the head of the table interrupted and held her hands up for silence. ‘Miss Knightsbridge and Survival Camp Extreme are, as you know, both made by Purple Productions. Very different, admittedly, but both are under our control. As such, this is why the current media backlash is so damaging. The tabloids have been quick to notice the connection and it lends credence to the accusations made against Jack.’

Evie felt Jack’s eyes on her again and she forced herself to look right back at him. The green eyes didn’t flicker as he stared her down. Her charm offensive didn’t seem to be having much of an effect. What the hell else could she do? This whole damn thing had been blown out of all proportion.

‘These are our two top-rated shows and without some intervention there’s likely to be a knock-on effect on the ratings of both.’ The producer took a breath. ‘Fortunately we’ve been able to come up with a suggestion that will harness this backlash and turn it into something positive.’

‘Harness it?’ Jack said. His voice was strong and deep. Indeterminable accent—no clipped Britishness like her father. She caught herself wondering vaguely what his background was, where he was from.