Secrets of the Rich & Famous. Charlotte Phillips

plate was on the table.

      ‘How was today, then?’ he asked, sitting down. ‘What did you think of La Brasserie?’

      She held her cup in both hands, like a child, and smiled up at him.

      ‘It was amazing,’ she said.

      ‘Did you get the background you were talking about?’

      She shrugged. ‘I got some,’ she said. ‘You should have seen the food! There were things on that menu I’ve never even heard of, let alone tried. And the people were something else. I wanted to get an idea of image, you know? What the young women in the Chelsea set are wearing, how they act.’

      Her face became animated as she talked about her project. He felt absurdly touched by her excitement over a restaurant he’d visited more times than he could remember. Over things he no longer noticed.

      ‘And what did you think?’

      ‘I think I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. I mean, there were quite a few touristy types there, too, but it was still an eye-opener. They’re all so glamorous. Fantastic clothes! One girl had a dog living in her handbag!’

      He burst out laughing and she tentatively smiled back. As the blue eyes lit up he realised she was quite stunning. Good thing he had Mark to keep him on task. She could be a serious threat to his newly sworn singledom if he let her.

      ‘Where do you live usually, then?’ he asked. ‘When you’re not staking out the Chelsea set? I thought it must be somewhere in London—you know, at the journalistic hub?’

      Jen paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. It was one thing to share an apartment with the guy, another to start telling him personal stuff. Then again, she could do with some leverage here. This morning’s recce had given her some good ideas about working on her own image—and now she’d got Elsie on board to help with hair and make-up, and hit the online second-hand shops so hard that the thought of it still gave her palpitations.

      What she was lacking was information on the type of man she was aiming this image towards. She had no personal experience in that area. Her mother had always avoided talking about her father at all costs, never referring to him without using a variety of colourful expletives. La Brasserie hadn’t really been much help there, either. Wealthy businessmen were apparently too busy making themselves richer to be chilling out in the daytime midweek—no matter how posh the restaurant, and no matter how delicious the food.

      Speculate to accumulate. Maybe if she made small talk with Alex she could get some tips out of him and distract herself from the still lingering sense of isolation her afternoon’s research had left her with.

      ‘I’ve been in London for the last few months, but really I’m from Littleford,’ she said. ‘It’s a small village in the West Country. You won’t have heard of it.’

      No one ever had.

      ‘Not far from Bath?’

      ‘You’ve been there?’ she said, wondering when the hell he’d have had the need to drop in to a village where the star social attraction of the year was the Farm Festival in July, when everyone got together to admire cows and stuff themselves with local produce.

      He shook his head. ‘No, but I know the general area quite well.’

      When she looked at him expectantly he added, ‘I grew up in Bristol.’

      ‘You’re from Bristol?’

      ‘You make it sound like the moon.’ The green eyes looked mocking. ‘I haven’t always lived like this, you know. My parents are working class. My dad was a lorry driver and my mum was a dinner lady at my school. I could always count on her for extra custard.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Your surprise could be construed as insulting, you know,’ he said.

      ‘I guess I just assumed you’d had a … well, a privileged upbringing.’

      ‘Why? Because someone from my background couldn’t possibly make something of themselves?’ His tone was light, but the eyes had a razor-sharp edge to them.

      She backtracked. Hard.

      ‘I didn’t mean that. It’s just … well, it’s such a glamorous career, what you do. Hollywood, London, Cannes.’

      He shook his head.

      ‘I didn’t have any of that in mind when I started out.’

      He took a sip of his coffee. She waited for him to elaborate, but it seemed his own glam world wasn’t as interesting to him as it was to her.

      ‘What’s Littleford like, then?’ he asked.

      ‘Quiet. One pub, couple of village shops, church, duck pond,’ she said, trying to fob him off quickly so she could get the subject back on him. ‘So, how did you start out?’

      Her plan to pump him for background information on what suits he wore was trampled underfoot by her stampeding curiosity about his childhood. She’d assumed he’d been born to wealthy parents and had had an upbringing involving public school, nannies and a network of contacts that had given him a leg-up until he’d reached the top. Just how wrong had she been?

      ‘I started out small,’ he said. He looked down at his coffee mug, a smile touching his lips, creasing the corner of his eyes lightly. ‘I guess I just always had big ideas.’

      She smiled at that but he shook his head.

      ‘It wasn’t particularly a good thing. Where I lived you got through school, then you got out and started earning. Big ideas were seen as a waste of time. I had to fight to get my parents onside about going to college. I worked part-time to fund the course, but there was a real sense that I was wasting that money. I was lucky. I had an inspirational tutor and I was determined to succeed. I made a short film. Just a twenty-minute thing I wrote, produced and directed on a minuscule budget. I knew it was good. I believed in it totally.’ He laughed a little. ‘Feature films came much later. Ideas above my station never really went away.’

      ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ she said. She could definitely relate to it. ‘You don’t get anywhere by sitting around.’

      She realised suddenly that she was feeling hugely impressed by him, and quickly reminded herself that he might have made his own wealth but he didn’t seem to be in touch with his roots now. Typical. Get there and never look back. He obviously wasn’t above using his money to ride roughshod over other people now he’d got it.

      ‘So you live alone?’

      He asked the question casually, without meeting her eyes. The kind of question that might be asked on a date. A spark tingled its way up her spine at the thought and she felt mildly ridiculous. The idea that Alex Hammond might be interested in someone like her when he could call up a model at the drop of a hat was ludicrous.