What the Paparazzi Didn't See

by Nicola Marsh

  As if she’d conjured him up, Wade opened his door and strode towards her, tall and powerful and incredibly gorgeous.

  She’d rubbed shoulders with some of the most handsome guys in the world, from movie stars to sporting elite, but there was something about Wade Urquart that made her hormones jump-start in a big way.

  He wore his dark hair a tad long for convention and sported light stubble that accentuated his strong jaw. Throw in the deep brown eyes, the hot bod and the designer suit that highlighted his long legs and broad shoulders, and Liza wasn’t surprised to find herself holding her breath.

  For it wasn’t the clothes that impressed her as much as the body beneath, and the fact she’d seen every inch, touched every inch, made her skin prickle with awareness the closer he got.

  ‘Punctual. I like that.’ His slow, easy grin added to her flustered state as she shook his hand and managed to look like an idiot when she snatched hers away too fast.

  ‘I’m eager to get started.’ She gestured at her bag. ‘I’ve brought a ton of notes and pictures and stuff so we can hit the ground running.’

  ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

  She fell into step beside him, having to lengthen her stride to keep up.

  ‘I can’t emphasise enough the speedy turnaround needed on this.’ He stopped outside a conference room and gestured her in. ‘There’s a lot riding on this book being a runaway success.’

  A wave of panic threatened to swamp Liza, mixed with a healthy dose of guilt.

  Inventing a bunch of lies to protect Cindy hadn’t seemed so bad when she’d been jotting notes last night, but hearing the hint of desperation in Wade’s voice made her wonder about the wisdom of this.

  What if one of her lies unravelled? What if she was declared a fraud? Or, worst-case scenario, what if Cindy was exposed in the process?

  ‘Something wrong?’

  Everything was wrong, but Liza had to do this. It was the only way forward that enabled her to provide a safe future for Cindy while following her own dream at the same time.

  She was used to depending on no one but herself and to provide Cindy with that same independence, she had to make this work.

  She faked a smile that had fooled the masses before. ‘Let’s get started.’

  With a doubtful sideways glance, he gestured her ahead of him into the room, where he introduced her to Danni, the ghost writer, a forty-something woman who reeked of efficiency.

  ‘I’ll leave you ladies to it,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘And I’ll see you in my office this afternoon at one-thirty, Liza.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, not looking forward to the marketing meeting one bit.

  She might be able to fake it for Danni, but Wade had seen her naked, for goodness’ sake. Not much more she could hide from him.

  Over the next four hours Liza laid bare her life. The life she’d pared back, embellished and concocted, that was.

  Danni taped their interview, jotted notes in a mega scrapbook already filled with scrawl and typed furiously into a laptop.

  Danni asked pertinent questions, nothing too personal but insightful all the same and Liza couldn’t help but be impressed.

  And relieved. This biography business was going better than expected and, according to Danni, she’d have enough information by the end of the week to collate into a workable chapter book.

  When they finally broke at one-fifteen, Liza had a rumbling tummy and a headache, but she couldn’t afford to be late for her meeting with Wade so she grabbed a coffee from the lunch room, checked in with Shar to see how Cindy was, and made it to Wade’s office with a minute to spare.

  He barely acknowledged her entrance when she knocked and he waved her in, his eyes riveted to the massive monitor screen in front of him while on a speaker conference call.

  Whoever was on the other end of the line was spouting a whole lot of figures that made her head spin; hundreds of thousands of dollars bandied around as if they were discussing pocket change.

  She could hardly comprehend the advance Qu Publishing had offered her. It topped the other offers she’d had by two hundred grand.

  Ironic, it hadn’t been enough to tempt her when she’d had her investment maturing but, with her nest egg gone, beggars certainly couldn’t be choosers.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, clasping his hands together and resting them on the desk. ‘Working on the pre-orders, which are all important.’

  ‘How many people are interested in reading about my boring life?’

  ‘Boring?’ He spun the screen around, pointing at the spreadsheet covered in figures and highlighted colours. ‘According to the orders flooding in already, you’re ranking up there with Oprah and Madonna for notoriety.’

  He leaned back, pinning her with a speculative stare. ‘Which makes me wonder, what have you done that is so newsworthy?’

  Liza shrugged, knowing he would’ve asked this question eventually but feeling increasingly uncomfortable having to discuss any part of her life with him.

  Rehashing details for Danni was one thing; baring herself—metaphorically—to Wade another.

  ‘Not much, really. My high-school sweetheart turned out to be a soccer superstar so we were thrust into the limelight early on.’

  She smoothed a fray in her stockings, remembering how out of her depth she’d felt at the time. Photographers snapping their pic wherever they went, groupies slipping phone numbers into Jimmy’s pocket constantly, autograph hunters thrusting pen and paper into his face regardless of appropriate timing.

  It had been a circus but she’d quickly learned to play the game when a national magazine had offered her twenty thousand dollars for an interview.

  At twenty-two and fresh out of uni it had been an exorbitant sum, and she’d grabbed it to buy a new motorised wheelchair for Cindy.

  That interview had been the start. More had followed, along with interviews on talk shows, hosting charity events and appearing at openings for a fee.

  Jimmy had encouraged her and with every deposit in her investment account she’d been vindicated she was doing the right thing.

  Cindy would be secure for life. Liza never wanted her sis to struggle the way she had when their parents had left them.

  Being abandoned was bad enough, but left without long-term security? Liza could never forgive her folks for that.

  Not that she heard from them. Her dad had vanished for good when he’d left and her mum occasionally rang on birthdays and Christmas. Liza never took her calls, letting Cindy chatter enthusiastically, while she wondered the entire time how a parent could walk out on their child. Especially a high-needs child.

  ‘You travelled?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t want to become one of those women who clung to their man.’

  And she couldn’t leave Cindy for long stints, not that Wade needed to know that.

  It was one of the things that had eventually come between her and Jimmy. He needed full-time glam eye candy on his arm wherever he went; she needed to devote time to her sister.

  They’d parted on amicable terms despite what the press had said.

  But her heart had been a teensy-weensy bit broken because he was the first guy she’d ever loved, the only guy she’d ever loved.

  And he’d walked away, just like her folks.

  Thankfully she’d developed a pragmatic outlook to life over the years and, while Jimmy continued to be plastered over the media, she was glad
she’d stepped off his bandwagon.

  ‘I thought that’s what WAGs do. Pander to the whims of their superstar partners. Hand-feed them grapes. Fan them with palm fronds.’

  He was winding her up and her lips curved in an answering grin.

  ‘You forgot being on call twenty-four-seven.’

  He snapped his fingers. ‘Thanks for clarifying.’

  ‘Actually, you’re not far off the mark.’

  He arched a brow and she continued. ‘You’re on show every time you step out. Scrutinised all the time. It felt like a full-time job in the end.’

  ‘Is that why you broke up?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  She didn’t know if he was asking these questions in a professional capacity or assuaging his curiosity but for now she was happy to answer.

  Sticking to the facts was easy. It was the potential landmine questions she’d need to carefully navigate.

  ‘And then you dated a basketball star.’

  She wrinkled her nose and he laughed. ‘That good, huh?’

  ‘Off the record? Henri and I had a convenient arrangement. Nothing more.’

  Confusion creased his brow. ‘How did that work?’

  ‘He needed a girlfriend. I needed the lifestyle he provided.’

  She threw it out there, gauging his reaction.

  His eyes widened and his lips tightened, his frown deepening.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She shrugged, as if his opinion didn’t matter, when in fact it irked he thought badly of her. Not that it should surprise her. They hardly knew each other, despite one night of amazing sex. But for someone who’d spent the last umpteen years being judged by everyone, it really peed her off to add Wade to that list.

  ‘Our arrangement was mutually beneficial. That’s all anyone needs to understand.’

  He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. ‘I hope you’ll be giving us more than that in the book.’

  ‘My biography will be comprehensive.’

  He continued to stare at her as if she’d morphed from an angel to the devil incarnate and she struggled not to squirm beneath the scrutiny.

  When the silence grew painfully uncomfortable, she gestured to the stack of paperwork on his desk. ‘Shall we discuss the marketing plan?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, his frown not waning as he spread documents across his desk and picked up his pen. ‘I have a few ideas but I want to hear what you’ve come up with.’

  As Liza ran through an impressive list of ideas, from a massive social-media blitz via popular sites to weekly bonus e-serials to Qu Publishing subscribers, Wade wondered how he could have misjudged her so badly.

  Maybe he could blame it on jet lag, because he could’ve sworn the livewire he’d wooed into bed a couple of nights ago was far removed from the calculated, cool woman who was happy to date as part of an arrangement.

  He’d seen a lot of interesting couples in his travels, younger women with older men in it for the money and security. Hell, he’d seen it firsthand with Babs and his dad. So why did he find the thought of Liza hooked up with some slick sports star for the sake of lifestyle so unpalatable?

  ‘What do you think?’

  Damn, she’d caught him out.

  ‘Sorry, I was still pondering your Twitter tribe idea. What did you ask?’

  Nice save but, by her narrowed eyes, she didn’t buy it.

  ‘With the new e-releases of any sporting personnel three months before the bio launches, why not insert a snippet from the bio into the back of those books? Build a little anticipation?’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  She’d come up with some solid ideas and he was impressed with her work ethic. Pity he couldn’t say the same about the rest.

  ‘How do you feel about the serial WAG tag?’

  She stiffened in surprise. ‘That’s out of left field.’

  He shrugged, pretending her answer wasn’t important when in fact he needed to know what made her tick.

  Sitting across from her, the faintest rose fragrance scenting the air and reminding him of the way it had clung to his skin after their night in his suite, he had to know who the real Liza Lithgow was.

  Was she the soft, hesitant woman he’d met at the party and spent a wild, passionate night with?

  Or was she a gold-digging, plastic floozy who’d do anything to further her lifestyle?

  ‘Call it publisher curiosity,’ he said, hating how her answers meant way more to him than on a publishing level.

  ‘I’ve been called many things by the press over the years, serial WAG being on the tamer side.’

  Her flat monotone suggested rote answers, when he wanted to know the real her. It annoyed the hell out of him.

  ‘How did you put up with all that?’

  ‘Came with the territory,’ she said, darting a nervous glance at the documentation on his desk, as if she’d much rather be discussing business than her personal life.

  Too bad. He wanted to know more about the investment his dad’s company was riding on and right now he had the distinct feeling she was hiding something. Something that went beyond a need for some degree of privacy.

  He couldn’t pinpoint what it was but her general evasiveness, the look-away glances, the rote answers, seemed too trite, too polished, almost as if she’d rehearsed.

  Crazy? Maybe, but he’d put his father’s company and three hundred grand of his own money on the line for this book. It had to be a blockbuster and so far Liza hadn’t inspired him with her careful answers and measured responses.

  ‘You haven’t told me why every publisher in Melbourne was clamouring for your exclusive story,’ he said, prepared to keep interrogating her until she told him the truth.

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘I slept with the entire Aussie soccer team,’ she deadpanned. ‘The English one too.’

  He barked out a laugh. ‘Don’t believe you about the English. I would’ve read about that in London.’

  ‘Pity my antics didn’t make it all the way over there,’ she said, her tone holding a hint of accusation. ‘What is it you want me to say? That I danced naked at the Grand Final? That I had half the team and cheerleaders in my room one night?’

  Her voice had risen and she lowered it, making him feel guilty for pushing her. ‘Honestly? I have no idea why my story is so important, other than the fact I haven’t given them a story before now.’

  She held out her hands, as if no tricks up her sleeves. ‘I’ve been reticent in interviews over the years. I pick and choose the ones I do and the questions I answer. Maybe that’s built the mystery? Plus the fact I’ve dated two mega-famous Aussie sporting stars, people want to know, “Why her? What’s so special about her?”’

  He’d touched a nerve.

  He could see it in the frantically beating pulse in her neck, in the corded muscles, in her rigid shoulders.

  He could move in for the kill now he had her more animated and far removed from her trite answers, but something in her eyes stopped him.

  She looked almost haunted. As if she’d seen too much, done too much, and was still reeling from it.

  It made him even more curious. What or who had put that look in her expressive eyes?

  ‘Want to take a break and meet back here at four-thirty?’

  Liza nodded and stood before he’d barely finished the sentence. She was desperate to escape? Yeah, looked as if he’d definitely hit a ner
ve.

  He watched her walk to the door, a goddess in sheer stockings, a tight red dress and heels that could give a guy serious ideas.

  ‘Liza?’

  She glanced over her shoulder and arched a brow.

  ‘Good work on the marketing campaign.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Her smile lit her expression and made her eyes sparkle, the first genuine show of emotion all afternoon.

  Interesting. Either this book or this marketing job meant more to her than she was letting on.

  ‘See you later,’ he said as she slipped out of the door with a wave, leaving him more bamboozled than ever.

  Would the real Liza Lithgow please stand up?

  SEVEN

  LIZA LITHGOW’S STYLE TIPS

  FOR MAXIMUM WAG WOW IMPACT

  The Day Spa

  For a WAG to have true wow potential at any event, a visit to a day spa beforehand is a must.

  Below is a list of treatments, from the basic to the sublime.

  Worth the time and money investment for body and soul.

  Waxing

  Eyelash tint

  Spray tan

  Mani and pedi (skip the basic and go deluxe)

  Footbath/reflexology

  Body scrub

  Clay body mask

  Yoghurt body cocoon

  Massage (including scalp)

  Facial

  If you’re too busy to attend a day spa, set aside a few hours at home and DIY.

  Cooled tea bags or cucumber slices work wonders to de-puff eyes.

  Make your own moisturising face mask: Blend yoghurt, honey, avocado and aloe vera gel, paint on face with a foundation brush, let it dry for twenty minutes and rinse. Refreshed skin!

  Condition your hair with coconut oil. You can leave it in overnight for deeper moisturizing.

  Make your own exfoliating body scrub: 1 cup raw oats, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup olive oil. Mix together and apply on dry skin moving your hand in slow circles. Rinse off. Smooth skin!

  Make your own hand cream: add a few drops of tea tree oil, lavender oil and olive oil to a few spoonfuls of cold cream. (For a fruity smell, add a banana.) Blend. Slather over hands, wear rubber gloves while watching TV. For better penetration, place gloved hands on a hot-water bottle.