Unguarded Moment. Sara Craven

glass, water and sad-looking blooms were strewn across the carpet at Bianca’s feet. Alix thought detachedly that she looked magnificent, even if the flush in her cheeks was caused by temper rather than excitement or good health.

      The huge emerald eyes, which had been staring straight ahead, focussed on Alix and sharpened.

      Bianca said, ‘So it’s you. Where the hell have you been?’

      Alix suppressed a sigh. ‘So nice to be needed,’ she said drily. ‘I’ve been on holiday, in case you’ve forgotten—to Rhodes. Didn’t you get my card?’

      ‘I may have done,’ Bianca gave an irritable shrug. ‘The girl they sent from the agency has been dealing with the mail. My God, what a mistake that was!’

      ‘Wasn’t she any good?’ Alix fetched a discarded newspaper from the table beside the chaise-longue and began to gather the broken glass and wilted flowers on to it.

      ‘Useless. It’s all her fault that this frightful man is coming here this morning. She made the appointment without consulting me. Well, you’ll just have to get rid of him, Alix. Telephone him. Tell him I’m ill—tell him anything. I won’t see him. I won’t!’ There was an hysterical note in Bianca’s voice and Alix glanced up at her, her brows drawing together in a faint frown.

      She said equably, ‘Very well. But what shall I say when he asks for another appointment? And he surely will. This is a commission, and he won’t want to lose out.’

      Bianca’s perfectly painted mouth twisted sullenly. ‘Oh God, you sound just like Seb! He won’t help at all. He says I’ve agreed that my life story should be written, and the best thing I can do is co-operate.’ She swore viciously. ‘Some public relations man he turned out to be!’

      ‘He’s one of the best,’ Alix said, faintly amused. ‘And his advice is probably good.’

      Bianca gestured wildly. ‘But I don’t want his advice. I just want him to get rid of this terrible man—this Brant.’

      Alix retrieved a sliver of glass from the carpet with a certain amount of care.

      ‘How do you know he’s so terrible? He might be charming. If you met him you might like him.’

      ‘I would not.’ Bianca made it sound like a solemn vow. ‘He writes the most awful things. He did the Kristen Wallace book last year, and he made her sound like a neurotic bitch.’

      ‘Well, isn’t she?’ In spite of her care, Alix had cut her finger on a splinter, and she sucked the blood reflectively.

      ‘Of course,’ Bianca said impatiently. ‘But he had no right to say so.’

      Alix hadn’t read the book, but she could remember Bianca doing so with gurgles of enjoyment, and she knew now why the name seemed familiar. The Wallace biography had caused a sensation because it had exploded a myth once and for all. Kristen Wallace had acquired a reputation for playing serious roles in films which relied heavily on prolonged silences and heavy symbolism for their impact. In the book, Kristen had been encouraged to talk about her work, which she had done at length, revealing in the process that she hadn’t, in all probability, understood one word of the deeply significant lines she was called on to say. The real genius, it had been suggested, was Miss Wallace’s dialogue coach. Alix remembered one critic had called the book, ‘A devastating insight into a deeply trivial mind.’ One thing was certain: Kristen Wallace had been a laughing stock afterwards, and she hadn’t made a film since.

      ‘He’s a hatchet man—a real swine,’ Bianca railed. ‘I don’t want that kind of thing written about me.’

      Alix began to smile. She said, ‘That’s hardly likely. You’re not a pretentious idiot like La Wallace.’

      ‘I don’t want anyone like that poking about in my private life,’ Bianca said with finality.

      One answer to that was that there was no aspect of Bianca’s life which could be considered private, but Alix wasn’t brave enough to suggest it. Her affairs, her marriages, and her divorces had all been conducted in the full glare of the publicity spotlight. There could be few details about them that the great reading public didn’t already know, ad nauseam.

      ‘So you’ll telephone him now,’ Bianca persisted. ‘And when you’ve done that, you can phone Seb and tell him he’s fired.’

      ‘Just as you say,’ Alix agreed cheerfully. There was no problem about the last instruction. Seb had a fireproof contract, and he was used to Bianca’s tempers. He said they added further colour to life’s rich tapestry.

      She disposed of the broken glass and flowers, and told Monty regretfully about the soaked carpet, then went off to the room she used as an office.

      The agency girl might have roused Bianca’s ire, but she seemed to be a neat worker. The desk was immaculate, and the carbons of the correspondence she had dealt with were all clipped together by the typewriter so Alix could familiarise herself with everything that had happened while she was away.

      The filing had all been done too, and she found Liam Brant’s letter without difficulty. It was a polite enough request for an interview, she thought, as she dialled his number, but the signature was a give-away—a slash of black ink, harsh and arrogant, across the creamy paper.

      His line was engaged, so she re-dialled and spoke to Seb.

      ‘You’re fired.’

      ‘That’s the fourth time this year,’ Seb said mournfully. ‘One day I’ll take her at her word, and then where will she be? And how are you, my honey flower? Did you enjoy your happy hols?’

      ‘I wish I could remember,’ Alix sighed. ‘I’ve now got to gently but firmly get rid of Mr Brant.’

      There was a startled sound, then Seb said, ‘I can tell you now that you won’t. I tried to indicate that to Bianca, but there was no reasoning with her. She put the phone down on me in a hell of a rage.’

      ‘And broke a vase,’ Alix said ruefully. ‘I’ve just been picking the pieces up.’

      ‘Well, my advice is still to co-operate with Mr Brant, or you may have more than the pieces of a vase to pick up,’ Seb assured her. ‘Have you come across any of his books?’

      ‘Only by hearsay. I gather Bianca’s been reading some of them—the Kristen Wallace biography in particular.’

      ‘Well, I suggest you read them too, so that you know what you’re up against.’

      When she had replaced the receiver, Alix sat for a moment or two staring at the phone as if it might bite her. Then slowly and carefully she re-dialled Liam Brant’s number. She did not know whether to be sorry or relieved when it was still engaged.

      She looked at the internal telephone on her desk, wondering if she should ring Bianca’s suite to warn her she had been unable to get through to Liam Brant as yet, or whether she should go up and tell her in person, passing on at the same time Seb’s rather terse advice.

      She needed to go upstairs anyway. She had her unpacking to do, and she needed to change. Bianca had been too overwrought to notice her brief cream denim skirt and sleeveless black top, and her bare tanned legs culminating in flimsy leather sandals bought from a street market, but she would notice eventually, and not be pleased.

      When Alix had first come to work there, she had been so dazzled to find herself the possessor of a salary which exceeded anything she could reasonably have hoped for that she had plunged into an orgy of buying. She didn’t want the way-out things displayed in so many of the boutiques, but it was fun to choose things which enhanced her young slenderness, clothes which whispered to her entranced image in fitting room mirrors that she could be more than merely attractive—that she might even have the promise of beauty.

      She had entirely forgotten what had happened after her first visit to the house, when she had been brought into this very room to meet her predecessor, whose abrupt departure had provided the