But the underlying tension was there nonetheless. And as Abby reached the fifth question of the evening she could sense a change coming over Max. Her resolve wavered once again as she hesitated about stepping from the script he had dictated for the evening.
Arrogantly. Arbitrarily.
No matter what he had just said, he most certainly didn’t love her! He—
‘So tell me, Abby,’ Max suddenly drawled pleasantly, ‘how are you liking presenting your own show?’
She stared at him even as she gave an appropriate reply. What was he doing?
‘I hear rumours of there being a second series?’ he continued lightly. ‘You must be pleased by the show’s success?’
He was attempting to take over the programme; that was what he was doing!
She straightened in her chair, her hands tightly gripped together, her pulse racing as she made the decision to step into the arena.
‘I haven’t heard those rumours, Max,’ she said. ‘But, to get back to you: this is the first interview of this kind you’ve given in two years. Understandably so. And I’m sure everyone watching this evening is aware of the events that led up to your decision not to appear in public again in this way.’
‘Abby!’ he warned softly, still seemingly relaxed with only the white knuckles of his hands, as he gripped the arms of the chair, to show that he was far from it.
‘But it has been two years,’ she continued evenly, knowing she was committed to going ahead with this now. ‘And I’m sure we would all like to know—’
‘Abby. Darling. I’m sure that you don’t want me to tell everyone,’ he cut in smoothly, ‘that the only reason I’m here tonight is because I could hardly continue to say no to coming on the show of the woman I’m going to bed with!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘AND that, my darling Monty, is when I hit him,’ she concluded with an emotional sniff. ‘And why I can never go out in public again. Never see any of my friends again. Never be able to face my parents again!’ She groaned with remembered humiliation. ‘They were watching all that, Monty. Oh!’ She buried her face in her hands once again.
How could Max have done that to her?
And what had she intended doing to him? a little voice inside her head reminded her reasonably.
Yes, but that was different. He had deserved what she’d been about to do to him!
Besides, she’d had no intention of asking him anything to do with Kate Mayhew. The angry humiliation she felt at Max’s hands—even seconds before they’d gone on air he’d tried to make her believe he was in love with her!—didn’t extend to deliberately hurting the other woman or her children. Max had been her only target—and instead he had reversed the roles and made her the target instead.
She was finished—both professionally and personally. In fact, she would be surprised if she could find the smallest corner of the world who wouldn’t know of her humiliation at Max’s hands—and mouth!—by morning. Maybe Bolivia, after all? A loud pounding sounded on her apartment door.
Not happy with telephoning, with ringing her doorbell, now someone had actually managed to get as far as her apartment door!
The pounding continued, despite her efforts to shut it out, and through the width of two doors she could hear the muffled sound of a voice.
Max’s voice?
She wasn’t sure.
And she didn’t want to be sure, reaching up to put her hands over her ears. Whoever it was would tire soon, would realise she either wasn’t at home or she simply wasn’t about to open the door. To anyone. Even if the building were to catch on fire. Like a captain, she would go down with the ship—
The bathroom door burst open. Abby’s hands fell away from her ears as she stared at a wild-eyed, frantic-looking Max where he stood in the doorway.
Relief flooded over his features as he saw her gaping at him. ‘Thank you, thank you!’ he breathed deeply. ‘Abby—’
‘Get out of here!’ she gasped, sinking beneath the rapidly cooling bubbles, not caring that this man had already seen her completely naked; that had been at a time when she had thought there was a chance the two of them might actually be in love with each other. Now it was just a complete violation.
But instead of leaving he stepped further into the room. ‘I need to talk to you, Abby—’
‘Well, you aren’t talking to me here, damn it!’ she burst out incredulously. ‘Besides, I don’t need to talk to you. What I need, what I really need, is for you to just turn around and leave!’ And never come back!
He paled slightly. ‘Abby, please let me—’
‘Please!’ she repeated incredulously, sitting up slightly, the perfumed bubbles still just enough to cover her nakedness. ‘You humiliated me this evening—deliberately, coldly, calculatedly humiliated me—and now you dare to say please to me?’ She glared furiously at him. ‘Get out now, Max, and don’t ever come back!’
He shook his head, his expression grim. ‘I know it must seem that way to you—but, Abby, I never meant to hurt you—’
‘Oh, you didn’t?’ she challenged with sarcasm. ‘Strange, because as I remember it that’s exactly what you did!’ Tears filled her eyes now. ‘My parents were watching that show earlier, Max. My parents!’ Her voice rose in horror at how they must be feeling after hearing publicly that their daughter had been to bed with this man. ‘Don’t come any closer, Max,’ she warned, as he did exactly that. ‘You—What’s that?’ she questioned sharply as she saw the recording in his hand.
‘The rest of the show.’
‘I don’t need a hard copy of that show, Max—it’s indelibly imprinted on my brain!’ And on those of millions of others…
‘I said it’s a copy of the rest of the show, Abby,’ he told her firmly. ‘And you really do need to see it.’
‘The rest of the show?’ Abby repeated scornfully. ‘There was no “rest of the show”.’ The last thing she had heard, before she’d ripped the earpiece from her ear and thrown it on the ground, had been Gary’s instruction to go to a commercial break. Instruction? He had screamed the order!
‘Oh, yes, there’s a “rest of the show”, Abby,’ Max assured her determinedly. ‘Put something on and I’ll get this set up to watch.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she raged, very close now to completely losing it. ‘Take your recording, and yourself, and just—How did you get in here, anyway?’ she suddenly asked suspiciously. ‘I know I locked the door.’
‘Well, I didn’t bother with the “it’s your birthday” ruse.’ Max sighed as he reminded her of her own initial method of getting up to his apartment seven weeks ago. ‘But your doorman recognised me easily enough, and once I explained to him that you weren’t answering your telephone or your door buzzer, that I was worried about you, he was only too happy to let me in with his key.’
‘Oh, great!’ Abby scorned. ‘Now everyone thinks I’m a suicide case!’
‘Not me,’ Max assured her with a rueful smile. ‘You’re too strong, too courageous—’
‘Oh, cut the bull, Max,’ she said impatiently. ‘After tonight the only way I’m going to be able to go out in public again is if I dye and cut my hair and change my name—and even that probably won’t work!’
He gave an appreciative smile. ‘The change of name we can discuss in a few minutes. But leave your hair exactly as it is; I happen to like it just that colour and style!’ He sobered. ‘Come and watch the rest of the show, Abby,’ he invited softly. ‘If you still want me to leave after that, then I will.’
‘You most certainly will!’ she assured him with feeling. But at the same time knew she no longer felt quite as desperately unhappy as she had.
She had no idea how, but a part of her—the part of her that was in love with him—somehow knew that Max was going to make all of this turn out fine.
Which was laughable after all that he had done!
She didn’t have any clothes in the bathroom with her. Instead she put her robe on over her nakedness, its d
eep blue colour an exact match for her eyes. It zipped at the front from neck to ankles, meaning she was perfectly decent. Besides, what did it matter? Her inner emotions might have been publicly bared this evening, but Max had seen all of her bared!
He was on the sofa when she joined him in the sitting room, and Abby avoided his gaze as she deliberately sat in one of the armchairs. Monty, the continuing traitor, made no move to leave the comfort of Max’s knee.
‘I tried earlier to explain the situation to him,’ she said dryly. ‘But I guess he just didn’t understand!’
‘Oh, I think Monty understands more than you realise,’ Max told her huskily.
Her eyes flashed deeply blue as she glared at him. ‘He’s a man,’ she snapped. ‘And men usually stick together, don’t they?’
Max gave her a long, lingering look. Abby met his gaze unflinchingly. He gave a sigh. ‘Let’s watch the recording,’ he suggested huskily.
‘By all means—let’s all watch my annihilation!’ she agreed coldly.
Max looked as if he would like to argue that point, but instead he tightened his mouth and switched on the recording.
The first ten minutes of her show were exactly—painfully—as Abby remembered them. She had believed herself cool and in control earlier this evening, but the recording showed her to have been tense and obviously nervous, becoming borderline agitated as Max reversed the roles and began to question her, until, taking control again, she had begun to ask him about the events of two years ago.
She stood up impatiently. ‘I’ve seen enough—’
‘No—you haven’t,’ Max said firmly. ‘Nice punch, by the way,’ he complimented her dryly, as the screen showed him toppling backwards over his chair to lie unconscious on the ground, with a tearful Abby stepping over him as she marched out of the suddenly hushed studio.
It was almost worse viewing the incident like this, as one of the outsiders looking in. And the sudden appearance of an advertisement for a popular brand of nappies only made the whole thing appear even more ludicrous.
She gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘Couldn’t they have found something with a little more—?’ She broke off, frowning as the advertisement abruptly went off air and the cameras returned to the studio. ‘What—?’
‘Watch, Abby,’ Max invited softly, his face grimmer than ever as his gaze returned to the screen.
She did watch. And listen. As had millions of others, presumably.
Gary Holmes, having left his control room, believing they were off the air, had confronted a still-miked Max as he slowly began to get up from the floor. The conversation between the two men had been both startling and enlightening!
‘Satisfied, Gary?’ Max challenged, standing to massage his painful jaw.
‘Completely,’ the other man returned scornfully. ‘I knew when Abby told me she was going to get you on her show that she was going to be trouble.’
‘Is that why you’ve made her life such a misery these last months?’ Max challenged.
‘Of course,’ Gary taunted. ‘I tried to get rid of her completely, but that proved harder to do than I’d realised. Not that it matters now, because tonight she succeeded in totally humiliating both of you; what more could I ask for?’
‘Kate Mayhew’s continued silence, maybe?’ Max suggested softly.
‘Well, there is that, of course,’ the other man derided confidently.
Max gave a disgusted shake of his head. ‘I should have just let Rory Mayhew shoot you two years ago!’
Abby shot Max a startled look at this statement. What on earth did he mean? Rory Mayhew had gone on Max’s show intending to ruin the man who was having an affair with his wife by committing suicide on his show. Where did Gary come into this?
‘Perhaps you should,’ Gary continued mockingly on the screen.
‘You blood-sucking parasite,’ Max told the other man coldly. ‘Kate made the mistake of having an affair with you, and despite all her pleading you used it against her by telling her husband when his career was already falling apart.’
‘Why not go for total meltdown?’ Gary said, seeming horribly amused.
Max shook his head disgustedly. ‘He was foolish. And so was Kate, for ever thinking you had any human decency inside you. But neither of them deserved what you did to them.’
‘And exactly what did I do?’ the other man challenged.
‘You blackmailed Kate into continuing to see you by threatening to tell her husband of your relationship. And then, without telling her, you secretly blackmailed her husband with exposure, too. Doesn’t directing pay enough? Is that it, Gary?’ Max challenged. ‘Or could it be that you did it for another reason?’
Gary gave him a scathing glance. ‘And what reason would that be?’
‘That you’re a man who likes to have power over others,’ Max said. ‘You don’t want to just stick the knife in, you like to twist it around too!’
‘So I played a little game with the Mayhews that went too far. So what?’ Gary challenged.
‘It wasn’t a game. It was people’s lives,’ Max returned icily. ‘It cost Rory Mayhew his life and Kate Mayhew her husband—her children their father! Doesn’t that mean anything to you, you bastard?’
‘Not a lot, no.’ Gary shrugged. ‘Besides, you can’t prove any of this, Harding,’ he added dismissively.
‘Oh, no?’ Max challenged softly. ‘Try looking at the cameras, Gary. See that green light? My live mike? Yes, I thought they might surprise you,’ he said with satisfaction as the other man blanched. ‘You see, I don’t have to prove a thing, Gary. You’ve done that yourself—very effectively.’
Gary looked like a man who had been hit between the eyes, beyond pale now, looking almost green.
‘I’ve waited two years for this, Holmes. I was never able to prove any of this before. But with your public—very public—confession…’ He smiled. ‘You’re finished, Gary. Absolutely. Completely. In fact, I should think that in future you might have difficulty getting a job sweeping the floor of this studio, let alone directing in it—’ He broke off as the other man, with a low, guttural growl, launched himself at him, his hands going for Max’s throat, a maniacal light in those pale blue eyes.
‘He was arrested seconds later for attempted assault,’ Max said. ‘And I will obviously be only too happy to press charges. The police are also going to look into the events of two years ago to see if they can find any other charges against Holmes—blackmail included—that might stick.’
Abby sat in mute silence, completely stunned by what had taken place in the studio after she’d left.
And the fact that it had been Gary—not Max—who had been having an affair with Kate Mayhew two years ago!
And now? What was Max’s involvement with the other woman now?
‘I felt responsible, Abby.’ Max seemed able to gauge her thoughts. ‘It all came to a head on my programme, culminating in Rory’s death two days later.’
‘He didn’t get drunk and bring that gun on your programme intending to hurt you with it, did he?’ Abby asked wonderingly.
Max shook his head. ‘Gary was always his target. But there was nothing that he could do, that any of us could do, to prove what Gary had done to all of them those months before Rory’s death. Yes, Rory made mistakes, and, no, he shouldn’t have got drunk and come on my programme with his grandfather’s old gun.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘By that time Rory was totally irrational. He had some idea in his head that shooting Gary would put an end to all his misery. But once Rory sobered up and realised what he had done, in front of millions of viewers, I don’t think he felt he had any other choice than to kill himself. After that, all I could do was be Kate’s friend and keep Gary Holmes as far away from her—and me—as possible.’
‘And two years later I came along,’ Abby realised weakly. ‘Nosing. Prying. With Gary as my director.’
‘And then you came along,’ Max echoed softly. ‘Beautiful. Impulsive. Warm. But with Gary Holmes as your directo
r!’ he acknowledged. ‘He, as he’s just admitted, was far from happy at the thought of my being a guest on your show.’
Hence his constant harassing of her on the subject, his deliberate attempts to drive a wedge between herself and Max—even to the point of implying to Max that the two of them had some sort of relationship!
‘Your obvious anger towards me this evening suited him perfectly, Abby.’ Max grimaced.
She raised heavy lids, her eyes pained. ‘He knew all along I was going to switch questions on you.’
He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t too difficult to guess what you intended doing. Of course I couldn’t have known what Gary was going to do after you hit me and walked out, but once he came down onto the studio floor and started talking—’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘It couldn’t have worked out better if I’d planned it that way. Although Pat, bless her, must have thought I was completely insane when I indicated she was to keep the cameras rolling.’ He gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘I think the only reason she did so was because she was still stunned from seeing Abby Freeman lay Max Harding out cold on the studio floor! Where did you learn to punch like that, by the way?’ He rubbed his bruised jaw.
There was laughter in his expression, but not malicious, or even full of the cynicism she was used to. ‘My father,’ she acknowledged, still slightly numbed by what she had just seen on the screen.
All this time—years—Gary Holmes had been largely responsible for pushing Rory Mayhew to the point of suicide. What sort of man was he? A very sick one, obviously.
But she must have really shaken his complacency—more than shaken it!—when she had announced she was going to have Max as the final guest on her show. The one man who, because of his friendship with Kate Mayhew, knew exactly what had taken place two years ago, but couldn’t prove Gary’s part in it.
Best of Virgins Bundle Page 82
