Buch lesen: «Secrets of the Rich & Famous»

For my family, with love and thanks.

Table of Contents

Cover

Exerpt

About Charlotte Phillips

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

How To Marry A Millionaire In Ten Easy Steps

by Jennifer Brown

If you can’t earn it, marry it!

Champagne receptions, exotic locations, sumptuous food and designer everything. This is the world of the rich and famous, but is it a world of hype? A rich façade which can be infiltrated by following a few rules, wearing the right clothes? Or is there more to snaring one of the UK’s most eligible bachelors than a makeover and a pair of fake designer heels?

No rich man will look twice at a woman he believes to be after his money, so to fit into the world of the rich you must look as if you belong there. You must seem like his equal, as if you have money and a beautiful life of your own.

Join me on my undercover mission to find out if an ordinary Miss High Street like me, with a day job and a mortgage, can reinvent herself on a budget to join the world of the beautiful people and win the ultimate prize: the heart of a millionaire!

Rule #1: Move to the right postcode, even if you have to live in a shack

JEN BROWN stood rigid behind the bedroom door in the dark, arm raised, the vase in her hand poised to be broken over the intruder’s head the second he entered the room. As the door swung open one last thought dashed through her mind before cold panic set in and impulse took over. She wished, not for the first time this week, that she was back in her mother’s cottage in the country, where you could leave your door on the latch all night and still not be murdered in your bed.

A state-of-the-art security system and a massive front door was apparently not enough to guarantee that here in Chelsea.

As the door opened and the light snapped on she leapt with a yell from her hiding place and swung the vase with every ounce of her strength. If this were a movie she would have knocked him out with one crash and then waited smugly for the police to arrive and pat her on the back. But this was reality. And she wasn’t movie heroine material.

And so it was that before she could connect vase with scalp, before she had the chance so much as to kick the man in the shins, she was soaring backwards through the air to land with a thump on her own bed. Her wrists were immediately held in an iron grip on either side of her head, and as the intruder loomed above her she drew in a lungful of air and screamed as long and as loudly as she could.

She surprised herself with how loudly, in fact. He recoiled a little at the sound, his face catching the light, and she realised with a flash of disbelief just who she was staring at. Last seen yesterday morning on the front of her newspaper, in the flesh he looked even more gorgeous but a lot angrier.

She’d just tried to crack the skull of the most influential figure in British film-making.

‘Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you!’ he shouted over her, exasperation lacing the deep voice.

Famous or not, he had her pinned to the bed, so she ignored him and began to suck in another enormous breath.

He took advantage of the break. ‘Drop the damn vase and I’ll let you go!’

His dark green eyes were just a couple of inches above her own. The sharp woody scent of his expensive aftershave invaded her senses. Hard muscle was contoured against her body as he used his legs to pin her down effortlessly. She struggled, trying everything to move her legs and kick the stuffing out of him, but she couldn’t move an inch. The eyes looking into her own were determined, and his breath was warm against her lips.

Drop the vase? She gave it a split-second’s consideration. If her hands were free and he tried anything she could grab something else and bash him with that. The place was full of heavy minimalist ornaments—she’d be spoilt for choice.

‘Let me go first,’ she countered. Her heart thundered as if she’d just done the hundred-metre dash. She held his gaze obstinately.

He made no move to release her but his voice dropped to a let’s-be-reasonable tone.

‘You’ve just tried to brain me with it. Let the vase go and then perhaps you’d like to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing in my house.’

Fear slipped another notch as her mind processed that last sentence.

She should have known the only person who could get past the Fort-Knox-style security system in this place would be the person who’d put it there. And if it had been daylight instead of the dark small hours she might have listened to her common sense instead of turning the situation into a movie plot. No wonder the house-sitting agency kept their property owners’ details confidential. She could imagine women queuing up round the block to get this gig. It would be a stalker’s dream.

She’d built up a mental picture over the last two days of the person who owned this beautiful apartment: rich, clearly. You couldn’t rent so much as a shed in Chelsea unless you were über-rich and/or famous. Preferably both. Male, definitely. Everything in the place was pared-down and masculine. Exposed brickwork, black leather sofas, expensive spotlights, vast flatscreen TVs. No task was left ungadgeted. And single. In her opinion there was a serious over-use of art featuring the naked female form. Jen couldn’t walk past the huge painting in the hallway without being reminded that her breasts were on the small side and she had no curves to speak of. No, the only women who passed through this apartment were overnight guests with no say in the décor. She was sure of it.

She congratulated herself on her powers of deduction. She was in the wrong profession. Perhaps she should swap journalism for the police force.

Alexander Hammond. Film producer. Award-winner. Millionaire playboy.

She let the vase drop from her fingers. He followed it with his eyes as it rolled away, the look on his face thunderous, and the next moment she was free as he released her hands and stood up.

He straightened the jacket of his impeccably cut dark suit. A pristine white shirt was underneath, open at the collar and devoid of a tie. His thick dark hair was cut short. Faint stubble against a light tan highlighted a strong jaw. He looked as if he’d just stepped off the set of an aftershave commercial. One of those ones filmed in black and white, showing the hero on his way home at sunrise, a glass of champagne in one hand and the perfect woman in the other.

She suddenly realised how she must look, staring at him with her mouth gaping open from her position on the bed. Warmth rose in her cheeks and she snapped her gaze away from him, concentrating on scrambling to her feet with some measure of dignity. Unfortunately on the way up she caught sight of her appearance in the gilt mirror on the wall. One side of her hair was plastered against her face and neck and the other side resembled a bird’s nest. Terrific. Add in the greying old shorts and vest she’d been wearing in bed and she wasn’t sure she could feel any more insignificant in the face of his gorgeousness.

She made up for it by drawing herself up to her full height and fixing him with a defiant stare. After all, he was the one at fault here. There was a two-day-old signed contract on the massive kitchen table, detailing her right to be here.

‘You’re paying for me to be here,’ she told him.

She suddenly caught herself running her fingers through the tangled side of her hair and folded her arms grimly. What was the point? It would take a damn sight more than a hairbrush to turn small-town Jen Brown into the kind of woman who would impress Alex Hammond.

‘I’m what?’ he snapped.

‘Executivehousesitters.com? I’m here to provide that extra level of security against intruders.’

She searched his face and saw his sudden understanding in the exasperated roll of his eyes.

‘By crowning me with my own vase? That was your best effort at security?’

So an apology was too much to expect, then. Typical arty type. Everything had to be about him. Never mind that he’d scared her half to death.

‘What did you expect, creeping around the place when you’re meant to be out of the country indefinitely?’ She could hear the beginning of temper in her own voice. ‘I’m not meant to be some kind of vigilante security guard, you know. I’m just meant to make the place look occupied, that’s all.’

Apparently he could hear her temper, too, because he held up a placating hand.

‘About grabbing you like that,’ he said. ‘You were just on me before I had a second to think. I could tell as soon as I got through the door there was someone here, I just assumed I’d had a break-in.’ He leaned over the bed and picked up the vase, turned to replace it on the dresser. ‘Thank God you’re just a house-sitter. My PA booked it up. She must have forgotten to cancel.’

‘Cancel?’ Her heart plummeted.

He glanced at her. ‘There’s obviously been some mix-up,’ he said. ‘Something’s come up and I need to use this place at the last minute.’

No kidding, something had come up. Jen had seen the news coverage. She knew instantly where this was heading for her—right out through the door and back to her day job at the Littleford Gazette—and she wasn’t about to take it.

The Gazette, from which she was currently on unpaid leave, was great as far as rural local newspapers went, but she didn’t want to be reporting on welly-throwing contests and duck pond vandalism for the rest of her career. She had big plans. Everything was riding on them. And they started right here, in the Chelsea apartment she was passing off as her own.

Having somehow managed to land an internship at Gossip!, a huge-selling women’s magazine, she’d spent the last three months there, working herself into the ground, soaking up every piece of information she could lay her hands on, living on a pittance in a Hackney bedsit and loving every second of it. As the three months had come to an end she’d pitched an article idea to the Features Editor and got the go-ahead.

An investigation into the millionaire lifestyle from the angle of an ordinary girl. With a twist. This article was her ticket to a permanent job—a job that could change her life—if she could just come up with the goods.

For years she’d had a nagging curiosity about the lifestyle of the rich and beautiful. Who wouldn’t, with a father who fulfilled both of those things in spades? Unfortunately he was severely lacking in other qualities, namely those needed to be any kind of parent—although perhaps he reserved that ability for his legitimate children. Pitching an article whose main requirement would be to infiltrate that elusive opulent world had been a natural choice. She’d been wondering what her parallel life might be like since she was a kid. Now she had the chance to find out, and take a huge step forward in her career at the same time.

A career with a top-selling UK women’s glossy, living in London, living the dream, or back to covering dog shows at the Littleford Gazette, circulation five thousand.

No contest.

She intended—needed—to do whatever it took to nail this opportunity, and no man was going to stop her. Even if he was Alex Hammond. And even if it meant fighting a little dirty. The only advantage of having a waste-of-space millionaire for a father was that she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by rich men. Although rich, gorgeous men were slightly more nerve-racking …

‘It’s too late to sort it all out now,’ he was saying. ‘You can stay the rest of the night, then get your things together in the morning and be on your way. I’ll get my PA to smooth things over with the agency. No need to worry. I’m sure they’ll find you something else quickly.’

He spoke with the air of someone conferring a great favour. To add to the effect he gave her a lopsided winning smile that creased the corners of his eyes and made her traitorous belly perform a backflip. She wrapped her arms defensively across her body. Just because it worked on the rest of the female population—didn’t mean she’d let it work on her.

He made a move towards the door, his back already turned. No need to wait for her response, of course, because what he said always went. How kind of him to let her stay the rest of the night. A whole extra four hours. The bitter taste of contempt flooded her mouth, quickly followed by sheer panic. How could she complete her article if she got kicked out? She had to stay in this flat.

‘I don’t think you understand,’ she called after him, working hard to stop desperation creeping into her voice. ‘I have a contract. You have to give me a month’s notice to move out.’

He paused at the door. She waited. He turned back to face her, a frown touching his eyebrows. There was only one thing for it—she was simply going to have to brazen the situation out.

‘This house-sitting thing—it’s not completely one-sided, you know,’ she said. ‘I’m still paying rent. I’m here until New Years. I’ve even put up the Christmas tree. You can’t just barge in and throw me out because the mood takes you. I don’t care who you are.’

She saw coldness slip into the green eyes, and a slight inclination of his head acknowledged that she’d recognised him. Good. Then he’d know she wasn’t about to be starstruck into doing what he wanted. This was her big break, and not even his dazzling looks and reputation could stand in the way of her dreams.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Of course I’ll compensate you for any inconvenience, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

He thought she was after his cash? She shook her head at him in disgust. ‘I don’t want your money.’

Why was she even surprised? She knew the type of man he was. She’d known that type her whole life. And not one cell in her body would submit to his insulting assumption that he could simply swan through life buying whatever and whoever he chose, throwing money at anything that stood in his way. As if a man like him could ever understand her desperate need to prove herself on her own terms.

She sat down obstinately on the bed.

He looked down at her for a moment.

‘We’ll talk about this in the kitchen,’ he said.

Alex Hammond glanced through the house-sitting contract which he’d found in full view on the kitchen table. It seemed she had a point. Two minutes later she walked in, barefooted, tying a dressing gown around her. It was short, and he couldn’t help but notice the long, long legs and the dishevelled bed-hair that made her look as if she’d been doing something other than sleeping. He felt a spark of heat deep in his abdomen. A couple of weeks earlier and the surprise discovery of a scantily dressed woman in his apartment would probably have led to him trying to talk her back into the bedroom and giving her the one-night stand of her life. That wasn’t an option now. As of this week, he needed to be a changed man.

That resolution would be a whole lot easier to stick to without those legs under the same roof as him.

She didn’t sit down. Instead she lingered in the doorway watching him, leaning against the jamb.

‘I don’t want your money,’ she reiterated. ‘Not everyone can be bought, you know.’

He shrugged.

‘In my experience they can,’ he said. ‘It’s just a matter of finding the right price. Tell me yours and we can skip all this tedium, sort the whole thing out, and you can get on your way. Everyone can do with a bit of extra cash at this time of year.’

She shook her head stubbornly.

‘I’m staying put. You’re welcome to serve me notice, if you like. In fact, let’s assume that’s what you’ve just done, shall we? So I’ve got a month before I need to move out and at the end of that time I’ll go. No arguments.’

He had to admire her persistence.

‘I’ve had a look at the contract …’ he glanced down at her name on the top sheet of paper ‘… er … Jennifer, and I can’t see what the problem is. I’ll make sure the agency finds you somewhere else to stay that’s just as good as this, and I’m prepared to offer you generous compensation for the misunderstanding. What’s not to like?’

‘Somewhere else isn’t good enough,’ she said. ‘It has to be here.’

A lightbulb flickered on in his mind at the desperation clearly audible in her voice. Was that it? She was some kind of obsessive fan? Oh, great. Just what he needed.

He tried to speak kindly. ‘Listen, Jennifer, I know there’s a strong fan base for my work, and I’m grateful for that, but you have to understand I like to keep my work life and my private life separate.’

More like have to, from now on.

He saw her eyes widen, and her lip curled a little. It occurred to him that for a fan she didn’t seem particularly keen on him.

‘This isn’t about you!’ she snapped. ‘It’s about the address.’

She wasn’t making any sense. He felt suddenly very tired. Not surprising after the few days he’d had and the night flight in from the States.

‘What’s so significant about this address if it isn’t the fact that I live here?’

She dropped her eyes from his, fiddled with the belt on her dressing gown.

‘It’s an important part of my cover story,’ she said. ‘I can’t change it now. There’s too much riding on it. And I only have limited time and means.’

Her cryptic explanations were beginning to irritate him.

‘What the hell are you talking about? Cover story?’

‘I’m a journalist.’

The words fell like rocks into his tired mind. He’d just flown thousands of miles to get out of the scrutiny of the press pack only to find that one of them had moved in with him. He fought to keep a neutral expression on his face, to hear her out, when what he really wanted to do was frogmarch her out of the apartment and lock the deadbolt behind her.

‘What kind of journalist?’

‘I’m working on an article that involves me inventing a different identity,’ she said. ‘The house-sitting is a cheap way of getting myself an address in the right …’ she pursed her lips ‘… social bracket. I’m working to a tight budget.’

He tried again.

‘What paper do you work for?’

The blue eyes cut away from his.

‘I’m freelance,’ she said.

So she worked anywhere and everywhere she could. Terrific. It was time to wrap this up—immediately.

‘Get your stuff right now and leave,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a damn about any contract. My lawyers will take it from here.’

She tilted her chin up and looked down at him, as if another bargaining tool had suddenly occurred to her. ‘Mr Hammond, you must know that with a couple of phone calls to the right people I could have paparazzi outside this flat before the sun comes up,’ she said.

He saw steely determination in the blue eyes and braced himself against the surge of rage. These press people—thinking they could manipulate any situation.

‘Are you threatening me, Miss Brown?’

She shook her head quickly.

‘No, I’m not,’ she said. ‘You can believe me when I tell you I have absolutely no interest in what’s going on in your life.’

She must be the only journalist in the country who didn’t.

‘I’m working on a very specific project. I don’t want any trouble, and neither do you.’

‘But you don’t seriously expect me to move out of my own house?’ he said. This was the best place for him to lie low, decide his next step. He certainly didn’t intend to do it with anyone else under the same roof.

‘I don’t,’ she said.

She crossed the room and stood on tiptoe to take a glass from one of the cupboards. The movement made her robe ride up, and he fought to take his eyes off the length of creamy slender thigh it revealed. There was something undeniably alluring about her in a scruffy kind of a way. She went to the water dispenser on the side of the fridge and filled the glass. Not a hint of awkwardness, acting as though she lived here and he was the guest.

‘I’ll be no trouble. Just imagine you’ve got a very easy to live with house guest until New Year. God knows the place is big enough for two of us without getting in each other’s way.’

For some reason his mind snapped to the bedroom, to that lithe body pinned underneath his, the blue eyes gazing back at his own.

‘And what if I refuse?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve got a lot invested in this. A girl has to make a living, and if you pull the plug on this article I’ll have to find something else lucrative to write about.’

The pointed look she gave him said it all. Cross her and her next project would be him.

He’d heard enough.

‘Pack your stuff,’ he said. ‘In fact, no—don’t pack your stuff. Get whatever you need for the night and get yourself out of here. I’ll have someone send your bags on. You can collect them from the house-sitting agency.’

She didn’t move an inch. In fact, she got closer.

‘You people are all the same, thinking you can do whatever you like just because you’ve got a huge bank balance. I have a legal right to be here.’ Alex wasn’t so tired that he didn’t hear the desperate edge to her argument, but right now he was too tired to care.

‘I don’t get this,’ he said, levelling his voice with conscious effort. ‘I’m prepared to pay all your costs, cover any lost income. You could restart your project without losing anything. An address change can’t make that much difference.’

She took a sip of her water and Alex noticed her hands shake slightly. Good, she must be feeling nervous.

But she still shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Because I’ve already set myself up with this address and I’m not screwing around with that. Plus I don’t dance to anyone’s tune just because they happen to offer me hard cash. I can get where I want to by myself, thanks very much. This way you get to keep a low profile … that is what you’re doing here, isn’t it? … and I get to finish my article. Everyone’s a winner.’

She folded her arms. She looked as fresh as a daisy, clearly prepared to argue all night if necessary, and suddenly he was done with it.

‘Stay the damn night, then,’ he snapped. ‘You’ll be out in the morning before you’ve had your first cup of coffee.’

The words were barely out of his mouth before she made a move towards the door, immediately taking him up on it. She disappeared, her bare feet padding softly down the passage back to the bedroom.

He stared at the empty doorway. Let her have her victory. It would be short-lived. In a few hours’ time his legal team would have it sorted and he could bolt the door behind her.

Alex switched the phone to his other ear and looked out of the bedroom window onto the square below. It was early and traffic was still light. A couple of hours’ sleep hadn’t soothed his mood and he was more on edge than ever. Mark Dunn had been his lawyer and close friend for a decade, providing confidential advice he trusted on a personal and business level.

‘You’re actually telling me I can’t evict her from my own apartment? What is the law there for? There has to be some kind of loophole.’ He gripped the phone between ear and shoulder so he could flick again through the house-sitting contract.

‘Without looking at it I can’t be certain, but these things are essentially rental contracts.’ Mark’s voice was matter-of-fact. ‘Fax it over and I’ll check it out. Of course you could insist she leaves regardless of what the contract says, but in the circumstances that might not be wise. What’s she like?’

Young, slim, minxy blue eyes. Legs that shouldn’t be allowed.

‘Knows her own mind and is refusing to back down,’ he said. ‘Hinted that she could make trouble.’

‘She most certainly could if she wanted to. Alex, think how this could look if she put the right twist on it. All this stuff in the press about you and Viveca Holt. It’s just a few weeks until the awards season kicks off and, trust me, the words “casting couch” are not ones you want bandied about in the run-up to that.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’

The familiar bite of fury at the backlash resurfaced. How dared people dictate what he did? Who he chose to see? Part of him wanted to issue a statement: Yeah, so I had a fling with Viveca. A great time was had on both sides, if I say so myself, and I doubt it did her career prospects any harm. But really it’s none of your damn business.

‘You need to kill that story stone-dead,’ Mark carried on. ‘Listen to your PR team for once. You’re paying them enough. Go to ground for a few days and then gradually start to be seen again on your own in the right places. Maybe a few carefully chosen public events. Be seen to be having a quiet Christmas away from the limelight. Regain some respectability. Don’t give them anything to write about and it will all be forgotten by New Year. What you don’t need is some loose cannon of a journalist getting a scoop on you assaulting your own tenant and then throwing her out on the street. And that’s just one story she could come up with. There could be worse. These people aren’t big on truth. Any new story will be used as an excuse to rehash this current scandal. It could run and run if you don’t handle it right.’

Alex felt fury begin to mingle with extreme frustration. The last few days had been hell. The constant paparazzi attention had made work impossible, and then there’d been the backlash from the film studios backing the movie. He had no choice but to get things back on track if he wanted to limit the damage to his professional reputation. Since his business empire had been his one priority these last five years, he had no choice but to play the game.

‘OK, so if throwing her out isn’t an option, what do you suggest?’

‘If I were you, while we come up with a solution, I’d let her be and do my best to keep her sweet.’ He paused. ‘Not too sweet, though, Alex. That’s the kind of thing that got you into this mess.’