by Nikki Logan
They followed the waitress to a table at the rear of the restaurant set for more than a dozen.
‘Looks like even executives can have scheduling malfunctions,’ Brant said casually. ‘We’re not due until eight.’
Ava’s nape prickled. Good point.
‘Don’t let me interrupt your earlier conversation,’ Dan said, deftly changing the subject. ‘Pretend I’m not here.’
Oh, would that she could!
Brant looked at him, eyes narrowing. ‘Actually, I was telling Ava what a great job she’s doing. It seems she’s been made to feel…inadequate.’
Ava studied the embroidered tablecloth furiously, but felt Dan’s eyes on her.
Brant went on. ‘A little more praise might be in order from the higher end of the food chain.’
Ava hadn’t heard this steely tone from Brant before. Her eyes rose, but Brant’s gaze was locked firmly on Dan’s. Tension surged between them. Then Dan’s heated focus shifted to her, pinning her like a butterfly in a museum. She immediately regretted speaking, coming out tonight at all. When would she learn?
‘My apologies, Ava. You didn’t strike me as someone who needed constant reinforcement.’
Desperate to move the conversation away from her, she parried, ‘I don’t, but I was curious as to why I’m yet to be trusted with a scene by myself.’
A tiny crease appeared between Dan’s brows. ‘Those decisions have nothing to do with your abilities—’
‘So you say,’ Brant risked from across the table.
Dan fixed him with an irritated stare. ‘I do say. Let’s order some drinks, shall we?’
Ava was intrigued at the by-play between the two men flanking her. It had all the hallmarks of a peeing contest. Brant had dropped all pretence and looked as if he was thriving on the chilly encounter. For his part, Dan was matching him head-on. Brown eyes locked with blue ones.
Brant looked away first. He picked up the menu, and in an instant the charmer was back. He smiled winningly at the dazzled waitress and ordered an expensive bottle of wine. Ava occupied herself with filling each of their water glasses from the carafe in front of her, used the moment to steady her hands. Though she steadfastly avoided Dan’s eyes, she was conscious of them, narrowed and glancing between herself and Brant. The air was thick with unasked questions.
She discreetly peeked at her watch. A quarter to eight.
Oh, please let someone be early.
‘I’m done, Bill.’
Dan tossed the early edition on the desk in front of Bill Kurtz without bothering to sit. He wasn’t staying long. ‘It’s not working for me, and its not working for the show.’
The older man smirked, not glancing at the newspaper. He’d already seen it, then.
‘Ava-ricious!’ the headline called her, claiming she’d wasted no time in snaffling her pretty-boy host for herself. There was even an incriminating picture—Ava Lange and Brant Maddox in a romantic candlelit tryst.
‘Give it a chance to work, Dan. We’ve only just started.’
Dan pressed his thumbnail into the flesh of his index finger hard, and concentrated on the dull pain. It was an old trick he’d developed when he was a kid. To manage the anger. To control it. Possibly the only practical life skill he’d taken from his relationship with his father.
‘This show can succeed on its own. You’ve seen the dailies—it’s coming up beautifully,’ Dan said. ‘We don’t need this.’
‘Everything needs a boost.’
‘This is my show. My concept. We’re doing this my way.’
Kurtz glared at him. ‘You don’t want to get yourself a reputation, Dan. Reputations are career hurdles.’
Dan snarled. ‘Lucky I’m so athletic.’
There was something in Kurtz’s thin smile. Something predatory that reminded him of his father. How long had Kurtz been waiting for this moment? How disappointed must he have been every time Dan had acquiesced to the network on one ludicrous demand or another. Just waiting for the time bomb that was Dan to explode.
For the first time he saw himself through Kurtz’s eyes. The young gun, rising fast, rising straight towards Kurtz’s job.
The older man narrowed his gaze. Mentally reviewing Dan’s contract, looking for a weakness, most likely. There were none. Dan had checked.
‘I had that photographer primed,’ he said. ‘He knew exactly what kind of a story I wanted. This—’ he flicked his fingers at the paper ‘—is not it.’
Someone had undermined him. Someone with really bad taste in suits.
‘Since when have you ever heard of paparazzi working solo?’ Kurtz said.
Son of a… There’d been a second photographer. Dan had kept the first one occupied, ridden him until he’d fired off a few simple shots and departed on a mouthful of muttered abuse. But Kurtz must have known Dan would try to control the publicity stunt and he’d arranged a second snapper.
‘Tell me where the value is in portraying Ava as a scheming gold-digger. What happened to your desire to link Brant with a fresh-faced innocent?’
Kurtz didn’t answer.
‘You don’t really care how she’s portrayed, do you?’ Dan suddenly realised. ‘As long as she’s on the second page.’
‘Nor should you, Dan. This is outstanding PR, and that’s our primary objective.’
Dan’s lip curled. ‘This is not outstanding anything. It’s tabloid pap. Have you forgotten that Ava’s not just the face of Urban Nature but she’s the designer? I need her to be credible.’
For the show and for her self-worth.
‘That’s your problem, Dan.’ A distinct chill had entered Kurtz’s voice. ‘You seem to have lost track of where your loyalties lie. With AusOne. The network that put you where you are today.’
‘There will be no further PR relating to Ava Lange and Brant Maddox.’ His voice was granite.
‘Not your call.’ Kurtz tried to shut him down. ‘You don’t want to run this yourself, fine. We have specialists to take care of this kind of thing. People who’ve worked this industry for a lot longer than six years.’
Dan rested his palms on the edge of the desk and leaned towards the older man. Icicles could have formed off his words. ‘This is my show. Nothing happens without my authorisation.’
Kurtz glared, but leaned back. ‘I have a half-a-million-dollar production bill that tells me it’s the network’s show, Arnot.’
‘And you pay me fifty percent of that to make it the best it can be. And best doesn’t include discrediting the talent.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
His fingernails bit cruelly. Dan calculated his next move, then casually spoke. ‘How good would your picture look on the front page of the Standard with the headline “AusOne exploits female personnel”, Bill?’
Kurtz surged to his feet, dragging his belly past the desk on the way up. ‘Don’t you threaten me, boy. Don’t you dare. This network made you, and we will break you if necessary.’
Oh, just like his father.
Dan stood his ground, steel in his voice. ‘I calloused up amongst the best, Kurtz. I don’t break easily.’ He turned for the door. ‘I will not be playing this particular game. And I’ll be watching production frame-by-frame to make sure no one else does.’
‘You do not control what this network does!’ A spray of furious spittle fell short of Dan’s side of the desk. Kurtz’s raised voice earned a hush in the outer office.
Dan walked to the door before turning. He forced his body to relax. There was only one coronary in the making in this room. He pinned the blustering man with his steeliest gaze. ‘Do your worst, Bill. I’ll be ready for you.’
He turned and walked out of the office, mentally reviewing the coming month’s filming. You didn’t wave a red rag at a bull and then go and sit at your comfortable desk. He’d have to keep an even closer eye on production in coming weeks. Control things from the inside. Minimise the potential for Kurtz and his cronies to go to town on Ava. He had enough contacts i
n the PR department to stay across whatever disasters the executive producer was probably already conceiving.
He marched past Kurtz’s gaping assistant, glancing at the garish furnishings. Some days it was hard to remember why he wanted all this so badly.
Then he visualised his father, conjured feelings from twenty years ago. Never being good enough, talented enough. Being too much like his mother to bare tolerating. The liquor. The abuse. The crushing grief of a parentless boy; one parent who abandoned him literally, and one who abandoned him emotionally. When he wasn’t thrashing the living daylights out of him.
Until eight in the morning, when Mitchell Arnot suited up and went out into the public world. Popular, respected, adored by all. The town rep for Eyes-on-the-Street, for crying out loud. There was only one other living person in all of Flynn’s Beach who’d had any clue what kind of a monster his father turned into behind closed doors.
James Lange.
The man Dan respected above all others. The man he’d shared his fear with. The man who had taken him in. The man who, eventually, had asked him to go.
The man whose only daughter Dan was helping to screw over.
The innocent lift button bore the brunt of Dan’s fury. At Kurtz. At his father. But above all at himself.
He rubbed his eyes, breathing slowly. He couldn’t tell her. She’d never forgive him if she found out he’d been any part of it.
But how would she? If he stopped now.
How would she?
‘Ugh, this is awful,’ Brant murmured in Ava’s ear, when they paused for a moment between appearances. ‘If not for the intravenous latte I’d be desolate.’
As publicity exercises went, this was one of the network’s better ideas. Ava felt a thousand times more comfortable here, amongst her friends the plants, than at last week’s shopping mall debacle. Or the inner city appearance before that.
Bad enough to have to endure the claustrophobic crush of shoppers pressing in on them to see exactly what celebrity du jour the mall was offering. Bad enough that some grunted and walked away when they saw it was just the cast of a new lifestyle programme. But to spend the entire day under fluorescent lights smiling and waving, without one single breath of fresh air all day…Intolerable.
Today, in the dappled light of a leafy boutique garden centre, Ava stood elbow-deep in potting mix, demonstrating to two dozen wealthy would-be horticulturists how to re-pot a root-bound fern. The smell of the earth, the feel of the living roots, the waft of the fragrance rich air. And this time the audience had a genuine interest in what she was doing and what she had to say. They were plant people.
Her people. Good people.
She laughed and tucked her face close to his, so there was no risk of their hosts or audience overhearing. ‘Tell you what, from now on you do all the malls and I’ll do all the garden centres. Deal?’
‘Woman, you have yourself a deal. Sadly, I doubt the maestro over there would let us do anything independently…’
Ava followed his gaze to where Dan stood, monitoring the day’s activities. Just as Ava had finally accepted that she and Brant would share just about every scene, the PR personnel had finally accepted Dan’s presence at every event. He was senior to them, after all. They could hardly tell him not to come. But it was still hard to believe how hands-on he was. Did he really trust her so little in public?
How stupid did he think she was?
‘God forbid we should be seen without each other,’ Brant continued. ‘It might cause some kind of irrevocable breach in the space-time continuum.’
That drew Ava’s glance back to Brant. ‘You know, one day you’re going to slip up and expose yourself as quite an intelligent man.’
‘Perish the thought.’ He winked at her, then spun around to face his adoring public shouting flamboyantly, ‘Who’s next for an autograph?’
She watched him with affection. There was little question in her mind now that Brant Maddox was a far better performer than any of them knew. He had the public and the network completely fooled. He was amazing.
‘Careful, Ava, you’re going to give the tabloids fodder for another story, gazing at him like that.’
Her stomach dropped and she spun round. Not that she needed to. Her tingling senses had told her exactly who it was before he even spoke. Just thinking Dan’s name made her sigh.
‘I doubt I need to give them anything. They seem quite capable of fabricating what they need,’ she said.
There’d been two more stories published about her and Brant since the restaurant debacle. Not quite as offensive as that first one, but both complete with made-up content and carefully edited images from the PR trail. She swore the photographers must have waited, without blinking, for her and Brant to share a single up-close moment. Next thing she knew they were gracing the inside pages again—although no one had invaded her privacy quite like that first time. She wondered if the network had read the riot act to the press.
‘No smoke without fire, I think the tabloids would say,’ he growled.
‘They’d be wrong.’
Ava was tired of Dan’s ever-present attention. His constant fixation on how she presented herself with Brant. Once she would have been thrilled to be the centre of his attention like this. But now it was hard enough enduring the public frenzy, without the added pressure of him monitoring her every move. Judging. If not for the steady thrum of her heart whenever he was close she’d have thought she was finally over him.
‘You carry on as though Brant and I manufacture these things intentionally. The kind of press exposure I was hoping for was related to my skills. My talent. Not my love-life. Or my supposed love-life.’
‘He was kissing you in the restaurant, Ava. Hard to misinterpret that.’
‘It was my hand, Dan. Who cares about that?’
He locked eyes with her. ‘We’re talking about the press. All it did was whet their appetite. From that moment you two had a paparazzi price on your heads.’ He ran an agitated hand through his hair. ‘Just…be careful. Don’t give them any more than you have to.’
She wasn’t in the mood for a fight, but it seemed the fight was finding her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I thought your professional reputation meant something to you.’
‘It does!’
‘Then take care, Ava. This isn’t Flynn’s Beach. You can’t wear your heart on your sleeve in this industry.’ He looked furious. But he sounded concerned. ‘Just…take care. That’s all.’
‘Here’s a crazy idea,’ she said, glaring at him. ‘Why not stop putting Brant and me together in front of the cameras so much? Stop feeding the frenzy?’
He considered her words and visibly discarded them. ‘I think you enjoy spending time with him.’
She threw up her hands in frustration. ‘Yes, actually, I do. He’s the best part of this whole circus. At least he understands how I’m feeling.’
‘I imagine that’s part of his appeal.’
‘I can’t speak for all womankind but, yes, it is nice to have an ally on this battlefield.’
He stared steadily at her. ‘When did I become the enemy?’
Ava swallowed. ‘You know very well when. And that was your choice.’
An age passed before he nodded. ‘Then I have nothing to lose by warning you not to get too involved with Maddox.’
Outrage warred with frustration. ‘I’m not involved with Brant. Lord, Dan, you’re as bad as the tabloids.’
‘The camera says otherwise.’
‘Oh, please. As if you can tell. I had a crush on you for years and you had no idea—’ She sucked the words back too late.
Smugness settled across his features, infuriating and entirely seductive. ‘I had an idea, Ava. More than an idea, actually. And long before that night on the beach. I have a radar when it comes to you.’
His eyes gleamed hazelnut and she forced herself to ignore his use of the present tense. Did he seriously think that she would go from kissing him to
being with Brant in a few short weeks? ‘Then your radar needs recalibrating.’
For the first time in an age he laughed. Loud and genuine. Ava blinked her astonishment and her heart squeezed hard. The laugh instantly made her think of home, and warm fires and safety.
And it made her blood thicken.
She shook her head. She had to get a handle on these feelings. The man had made it perfectly clear he wasn’t interested. Beyond their charming little experiment in the garden, of course. And, more relevant, she wasn’t interested either. Daniel Arnot was too much work. Too career-driven and too complicated. She needed someone simpler in her life. Or at least someone she had a hope of understanding.
A perverse little demon raised its head. Why not? They got on well enough. Maybe attraction would grow between them? He was certainly handsome enough. She’d worked with less in the past.
‘What makes you think you have the right to tell me what to do anyway? If I choose to see Brant Maddox then that’s no one’s business but my own.’
Silence crackled. ‘Yours and the entire country.’
‘If I’m damned-if-I-do/damned-if-I-don’t, then I might as well enjoy the journey.’
Dan braced his feet and crossed his arms. His suspicion burned her. ‘What are you saying?’
Ava looked over to where Brant was busy flirting with the women in the crowd and still signing endless autographs. Don’t do it, Ava…
‘He’s a good-looking man. We get on. Besides, I don’t know many people in town. So, why not?’
‘Ava…’
That manipulative tone again. Just like that first day in his office. Fury simmered in her veins. ‘We’re spending all our time together anyway—thanks to you.’
‘I just warned you—’
‘That’s the thing, Dan. You don’t get to warn me about anything. I’m a big girl. Just because you can’t see that, it doesn’t mean Brant can’t.’ She prayed to the angels of understanding for forgiveness on that one.
Dan’s nostrils flared.
‘It’s win-win, Dan. You get all the on-screen togetherness you want, and I get all the off-screen togetherness I crave.’
