Friends & Rivals (32 page)

Up in her own bedroom, Catriona stared out of the window at the full moon, feeling gripped by despair. How foolish she'd been to imagine, even for a second, that Jack Messenger was interested in her. The whole idea was preposterous. Lisa Marie, the Jennifer Garner lookalike, and pouting, perfect, made-for-sex Kendall Bryce: these were the sort of women that Jack was attracted to. That Ivan was attracted to. That all men were attracted to. Not dumpy, middle-aged mothers like her. Even pretty, fit, blonde slips-of-things like Stella Bayley were being traded in for younger models.

‘I'm forty years old,' she said out loud to her empty bedroom, ‘and I will never be with a man again.'

They were hard words to say and hard words to hear, but she forced herself to believe them. Jack had been in England for a whole week and hadn't bothered to call her. Ivan was never going to leave Kendall. Lying to herself about either of those things wasn't going to help anyone.

Catriona Charles was on her own.

Ava Bentley stared out of the window of Ivan's vintage Aston Martin DB 7 wondering when she was going to wake up. Ever since she'd made it past the first round of
Talent Quest
auditions up in York seven months ago, her life had been one long, incredible dream. One minute she was a schoolgirl from Hutton-le-Hole whose only experience of London had been a school trip to Buckingham Palace back in Year Seven. The next she was a national TV star, with her face in the newspapers and perfect strangers calling out her name in the street. And she had Ivan Charles to thank for all of it.

Ava idolized Ivan, and was slavishly grateful for all that he'd done for her. But if truth be told, she was also more than a little afraid of him. He was so forceful and of course he knew
everything
about the music business and media and this strange, fast new world she'd woken up in. These things made him the perfect mentor, but they also made him very, very difficult to say ‘no' to.

‘Penny for them?' said Ivan, smiling broadly as they turned off Marylebone High Street into George Street. They were headed to the Daniel Galvin salon, stop one on the grand makeover tour that Ivan had insisted Ava go on before next week's quarter-finals.

‘Oh nothing,' Ava blushed. ‘I'm just thinking how weird I'm gonna look with blonde hair. Me dad always said he'd throttle me if I ever dyed it.'

‘Yes, but things are different now,' Ivan said smoothly. ‘Your father's a clever man. He understands.'

Privately, Ivan viewed Dave Bentley's mental capacity as little above an amoeba's, but with Ava still only seventeen he knew he needed her parents on-side.

‘Besides, you won't be blonde as such. It's only a few highlights.'

Twenty minutes later, Ava was sipping Buck's fizz as Louise Galvin ran expert fingers through her lank, mousy-brown hair. ‘So,' Louise asked brightly, ‘what are we thinking of doing today?'

‘Well, I thought I might get—'

‘We don't want anything too drastic,' interrupted Ivan, cutting her off. ‘It's vital that she keeps that youthful, innocent look. I was thinking a few honey highlights, maybe some layers. Don't go too short.'

‘OK,' Louise nodded.

‘I'll be back at two to get her. We've got the beautician after this, then wardrobe, so we need to stay on schedule.'

‘No problem. Leave her with me.'

I am here, you know
, Ava felt like saying. But she was nowhere near brave enough, and in any case there wasn't time. Ivan left, his phone glued to his ear, and Ava found herself being shuttled from station to station and basin to chair like a pampered sheep being expensively dipped and sheared. Other than ‘how's the water temperature?', no one asked her a thing about her hair or what
she
actually wanted. They did, however, want to know all the inside scoop on
Talent Quest
, firing questions at her about Stacey and Isabella James and all the other contestants, especially Michael Matterson, the fifty-year-old brickie from Sunderland who was considered Ava's biggest competition. By the time Louise Galvin held up the mirror to show her her new look, Ava was almost too tired to care. It did look lovely, though; like a mane of shimmery golden feathers.

‘Wow, thank you!' she said sincerely. ‘I hardly recognize myself.'

‘You looked gorgeous before,' said Louise, ‘but it brings out your eyes more and the shape of your face. I'm glad you're pleased.'

Ivan burst in like a whirlwind, pressing a wodge of fifty-pound notes into the hairdresser's hands and practically dragging Ava up out of the chair. ‘Thanks darling.' He kissed Louise on the cheek. ‘She looks perfect. Gotta run but I'll call you, OK?'

Back in the car, he handed Ava a smoked-salmon sandwich as he sped towards The Berkeley Hotel.

‘Oh, I'm all right, thanks Ivan,' Ava said meekly. ‘They gave me a salad back at the salon. They had champagne and everything, all free.'

‘It's hardly free,' laughed Ivan. ‘You could buy a small farm for the amount that place charges for highlights. Anyway, eat up if you can. A salad's not much and we've still got a long day ahead of us.'

He wasn't kidding. Sveva, the beautician at The Berkeley, had a friendly, smiling face that belied the ruthless operator beneath. Ava had no idea that the removal of a few, previously unnoticed hairs could be so teeth-crackingly painful. Worst of all was when, having waxed her eyebrows, Sveva decided the symmetry was not perfect and insisted on plucking away further with tweezers, a process that left Ava feeling as if a blackbird were repeatedly pecking away at her forehead. By the time she emerged onto Knightsbridge, red-faced and blotchy from her facial, every square centimetre of her skin stung as if she'd been dipped in acid.

‘Put these on,' commanded Ivan unsympathetically, handing her a pair of oversized Stella McCartney sunglasses and a big YSL scarf as they dived into Harvey Nichols. ‘You don't want some nosy punter taking a picture of you looking like that.'

By the time they'd spent two solid hours choosing a new wardrobe with Hillary, the private stylist Ivan had hired and whom he'd used to revamp the images of many of his big-name acts in the past, Ava was ready to drop. She had clothes for day and night, clothes for rehearsals, and outfits for each of the remaining shows before the
Talent Quest
final. She had handbags and sunglasses and scarves and hats and jewellery. She knew she ought to feel happy and lucky and grateful, and she would tomorrow, after twelve hours' sleep. But right now, all she wanted to do was go home to Yorkshire, crawl under the sheets of her own bed in her own room, and never, ever leave.

Ivan drove her back to the hotel in Earls Court where all the
Talent Quest
contestants were staying, checking his watch impatiently as they pulled up outside. He was already late for dinner with Kendall, never a good move, and he still had a couple of phone calls to make on his way home. Still, it had been worth it. Ava looked great – not remotely trashy, but a better, more polished and commercial version of her sweet, innocent self. As getting her image right could mean the difference between Jester surviving or collapsing, today's makeover had been an investment well worth making, even if Kendall did bite his head off about it.

‘You must feel like Cinderella,' he said to Ava as she climbed wearily out of the car, still swaddled in her scarf and shades. ‘You deserve it, though.'

‘Thanks,' said Ava, fighting back tears and grateful for the ready-made disguise. Ivan had never been anything other than kind to her, but somehow she shied away from showing weakness in front of him. Worse still would be to have him think her ungrateful. He must have spent ten thousand pounds on her today, and she knew that in the morning she'd be delighted with the results. But the homesickness that gripped her now was choking, like a vice.

Was this what fame felt like?

‘See you in the morning, kiddo.' And with a roar of his exhaust, Ivan Charles was gone.

Lex Abrahams picked up the rubber stress ball on his desk and squeezed it.
Nothing.
How did people get away with selling this junk? Standing up, he paced around his glass-walled office, moving the potted palm from one corner to another, rearranging the photographs on his coffee table and plumping up the cushions on the couch-that-nobody-ever-sits-on. It didn't help. He still felt anxious and restless and, quite frankly, pissed.

What the hell was Jack playing at?

On the other side of the glass, Jack watched JSM's staff scurrying about their business. It was a vibrant, buzzing office, full of light and colour and creativity and ambition and optimism. Lex was MD, and he was only thirty. Most of JSM's employees were in their twenties, barring a few of the senior agents, and an atmosphere of youthful energy pervaded everything about the company.
They're talented too
, thought Lex,
and hard-working. And they're relying on Jack and me to steer their ship safely.
Yet here he was, once again alone at the helm, while Jack swanned off on some ill-conceived ‘sting' against Jester in London.

He'd called last night, eight o'clock Lex's time, to announce that he'd ‘successfully' poached The Blitz from Ivan and signed them to JSM. Lex was furious.

‘What? Why? You never even discussed this with me. What the hell do we want Brett Bayley back on our books for? His US career's in the toilet, he's totally untrustworthy and he's a nightmare to work with. Plus, we already have Land of the Greeks. We don't need The Blitz. Have you considered how those boys are going to react to this news?'

‘They'll be fine,' Jack bristled. ‘We've just taken on four new agents, remember? There's plenty of room for everyone.'

‘It's a mistake,' said Lex.

‘I disagree,' said Jack tersely. ‘And I've been in this business a lot longer than you have.'

That was the part that really ticked Lex off. Jack had made him an equal partner. God knew he did at least fifty per cent of the work, more like ninety per cent when Jack took off on one of his mystery tours, like the one he was on right now. But whenever it suited him, whenever he wanted to defend some arbitrarily taken decision, he would play the ‘experience' card and dismiss Lex's objections out of hand. Deep down there was a part of Jack that still saw Lex as the photographer kid who used to hang around with Kendall. It drove Lex crazy.

The other thing that drove him crazy was Jack's unpredictability. Not only had he taken off to London without so much as a by your leave, just assuming Lex would pick up his clients and workload while he was gone, but he'd given no indication as to when he planned to come back. And why
was
he in London in the first place? Jack swore blind last night that he'd re-signed The Blitz for purely commercial reasons. But Lex hadn't forgotten his bizarre comment at Frankie B's Grammy nomination party, about ‘the best revenge' being success. If this was all about revenge, then where would it end? Was Jack going to try and take over all Jester's lame-duck acts, clogging JSM's carefully cherry-picked client list with dross? If he wanted to sacrifice his own life to some vendetta with Ivan, that was up to him. But he had no right to drag the company down with him.

Underlying all of Lex's anger and frustration about Jack's London trip lurked one, specific fear. What if his ultimate goal was to woo back Kendall? Wiping out Jester would be one thing. But re-signing Kendall would surely be the ultimate revenge? She'd become a symbol in Jack's mind, the beautiful Helen of Troy who had unwittingly unleashed years of war and bloodshed, and whom he must win back in order to truly defeat Ivan.

For Lex, however, she was much more than that. The way she'd used him when she was last in LA had wounded him very deeply. Not just because of the selfishness and cruelty of what she'd done. But because it reminded him, beyond any doubt, that he was still hopelessly, helplessly in love with her. Even after all these years and everything that had happened, Kendall touched Lex in a way that no other woman ever had. Or ever would.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds …

He'd broken up with Leila because he knew he didn't love her, not in the same way he loved Kendall. Yet, at the same time, if Kendall's publicity stunt on the Chateau Marmont balcony had shown him anything, it was that she did not return his feelings. She didn't even care about him as a friend. Friends didn't set friends up like that.

So the thought of Kendall coming back to Los Angeles and, worse, being managed by JSM, filled Lex with absolute, abject horror. She would be in and out of the office on a daily basis. He would have to see her all the time. For all he knew, she and Jack might even get together romantically. Kendall obviously still had feelings for Jack, and if Jack was planning to steal her from Ivan, why not go the whole hog? The whole thing was a nightmare, a hideous, ghastly nightmare he couldn't bear to think about.

Lisa Marie Evans, Jack's on-off love interest and one of JSM's highest-producing new agents, tapped on Lex's door.

‘Hi.' She smiled sweetly. ‘I don't suppose you've heard from Jack at all? He's not returning my calls.'

‘No,' said Lex. ‘I'm just his partner. Why in the hell would he tell me anything?'

‘You know he re-signed The Blitz?' Lisa Marie sounded excited. ‘I'd love to get that account.'

Lex raised an eyebrow. ‘You would?'

‘Sure. They're still a great brand, but their sales are in the tank. Whoever turns that around is gonna make a fortune.'

‘Hmm. I guess so.'

Maybe he was worrying too much? Overthinking things? If Lisa Marie saw The Blitz as a good signing, perhaps Jack really was basing this on commercial instincts.

‘Let me know if you hear from him, OK?' said Lisa Marie, disappearing back to her own office.