Those Angstrom Men!. (7 page)

Oh, wow, he’d finally noticed her!

“Oh, do you think so, Mr. Angstrom?” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

“Yes, very pretty blouse. I’m partial to that shade of chocolate. It reminds me of the chocolate mousse my fiancée made me last night.”

“Fiancée, Mr. Angstrom? I didn’t know you are engaged.”

“Yes, last Thursday. I’m a very lucky man.”

“Is she an actress or a model?”

“Neither. She is beautiful, but she, well, actually, Amanda, she works for one of our companies.”

“I thought you never dated anyone who works for you?”

“She doesn’t work directly for
me, that would be too awkward. I’d never get any work done, gazing into her gorgeous hazel eyes. And I did meet her before she came to work for us.”

He smiled at Amanda and went into his office and shut the door firmly.

Amanda could hardly wait for tea break, to share the news with her pals.

“Guess what, girls, Ian Angstrom is engaged!”

“I thought he might be,” said Linda, “given the picture they snapped at Cartier last week.”

“Yes, but here’s the dirt...she works for one of his companies, she made him chocolate mousse last night
and she has hazel eyes...does that remind you of anybody, ladies? I’ve racked my brains and I can’t think who it would be.”

“The only woman who has hazel eyes here in this building is Sophia, but she’s forty five if she’s a day and she’s married and has four children.” Elizabeth paused.

“I think Mr. Angstrom and his father own at least ten companies, if not more. We’ll just have to watch the Times for an announcement of the engagement.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I thought maybe we could find out who she is and.…”

“And what, Amanda?” asked Gloria. “Sell the information to the tabloids?”

Amanda flushed.

The other three stared at her.

“Is that what you had in mind?” demanded Gloria.

“Well, might as well make a bit of money.…”

“Amanda Lewis! You should be ashamed of yourself!” Gloria was angry now. “Mr. Angstrom is a good employer. You are well paid and well treated. How could you even think of betraying him? I’ve a mind to report you.”

Amanda squirmed. “I was only thinking about it,” she whined.

Elizabeth stared at her. “Well, don’t think about it again, Amanda, if you want us to have anything to do with you.…”

When Gloria got back to her desk, she hesitated, debating with herself, then she squared her shoulders and walked into Ian’s office.

She owed Amanda nothing. On the other hand, she owned Ian Angstrom a great deal.

“Ian, I need to have a very serious conversation with you,” she began.

Ian looked up from his file in alarm. “Eh, sit down, Gloria. You aren’t going to resign on me are you?”

Gloria smiled fleetingly. “No, I’ve no intention of resigning, Ian.”

“Then why are you looking so glum?”

“Amanda came to the tea break full of the news that you are engaged.”

“Yes, I told her this morning. We got engaged last Thursday when I came back from New York.”

“Well, she’s trying to figure out who your fiancée is, so that she can sell the information to the tabloids.”

“She doesn’t know anything.”

“She knows that the girl made you chocolate mousse last night, works for one of your companies, and has hazel eyes. Give her a few hours and she’ll figure it out, as I already have.”

“You have?”

“I have. You’re engaged to Maggie Parker.”

“Maggie Parker? Eh, why do you think that?” Ian was smiling broadly.

“She let it slip she knows you outside work, and she knew an awful lot about your father’s dahlias when we had lunch with her yesterday.

“There was also a discussion about chocolate mousse, and how she might make some for her boyfriend last night. You told Amanda the colour of her blouse reminded you of the chocolate mousse your fiancée made you last night.

“You also told Amanda your fiancée works for one of your companies and has hazel eyes...it is Maggie, isn’t it?

“She’s very attractive, very bright, and her hazel eyes shone almost gold at lunch when she mentioned you...”

Ian grinned. “Yes, it’s my Maggie. You and Tom are being invited to the wedding. We’re getting married surrounded by those dahlias in my parent’s garden four weeks from now. 

“She and my father have bullied me into repotting three thousand of the blood things so he can force them into full bloom for the wedding!

“Oh, Gloria, you can spread the word that I met her before she came to work here, so technically, I haven’t broken my rule very badly.”

Gloria laughed. “Ian, you are impossible. Now, what are we going to do about Amanda and the tabloids?”

“Let’s ask my fiancée…after all she’s a member of the press herself. She’ll know how to handle them.”

Ian picked up his telephone and called Maggie.

“Maggie mine, Gloria and I are sitting here in my office trying to sort out a problem...”

“You just called me Maggie mine. That means Gloria knows...”

“I’m happy Gloria knows, I was going to tell her today anyway, but she deduced it from what you said at lunch yesterday and what I said to Amanda this morning, and therein lies the problem...”

“Amanda has figured it out as well?”

“Not yet, but Gloria says Amanda is determined to figure it out so that she can sell the information to the tabloids.”

“Oh, dear.”

“How would like me to handle this?”

“We’ll just have to beat her to the trigger, Ian.”

“We could fly to Las Vegas and elope,” he laughed.

“Our families would never forgive us, especially your mother. I might be her only chance to put on a wedding. And my mother, she’s so excited to be coming home to England to see her daughter married.

“No, I was thinking of calling a reporter I used to work with at that women’s magazine. She’s with
DailyDirt.com
now.

“I could ask her to meet me for a drink after work, tell her I have a scoop for her. You could join us, she’ll get the story, then everybody will chase us for a couple of days, taking pictures of my wonderful engagement ring, but by the weekend a real celebrity will have committed some awful indiscretion and we’ll be yesterday’s news. I
thought about it after you were asleep last night...Amanda just makes us have to do it today.”

“Call your report
er friend at the
DailyDirt.com,
darling. That’s a very good idea. Online will spread much faster than print...”

Maggie went online and pulled up
DailyDirt.com
.  She found the email contact to her old colleague, Fiona Fisher, and wrote a quick note, asking her to meet at the wine bar in the Four Seasons at six, promising her a scoop.

Less than a minute later, Fiona had emailed back, confirming the appointment and asking if she should bring a photographer.

Maggie replied with one word. “Yes”.

Gloria was
anxious to help, so she loaded Amanda with so much work that the girl didn’t have time to think. She didn’t even get a proper tea break.

Maggie and Ian walked into the wine bar at ten minutes to six.

Maggie’s hair and makeup were perfect. Her caramel silk shirt looked great under her best black suit. The five carat diamond solitaire sparkled.

Fiona and her videotograper arrived at six on the dot. She looked at the bottle of Cristal in an ice bucket beside the table and the four champagne flutes, the tray of appetisers that Ian had ordered earlier that afternoon. She recognized Ian immediately. She smiled.

“Thanks for this scoop, Maggie. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Angstrom.”

“Ian, call me Ian, Fiona. Any friend of my fiancée is a friend of mine.”

“Is this on the record? Not that it matters if it isn’t, the
DailyDirt.com
doesn’t care about those niceties.”

“We wouldn’t have called you if we weren’t prepared for an interview and pictures to be online within minutes, Fiona.”

“Where did you two meet?”

“On a plane from Greece to London.
We sat beside each other and she bewitched me.”

“How romantic,” said
Fiona.

“Well, I’ll tell you the truth, Fiona,” smiled Ian. “I took one look at her in the airport waiting area, went to the desk, tried to pay for an upgrade to First Class for Maggie, but it was sold out, so I finagled the seat beside her in Economy and knew I was a goner the first time our hands brushed.”

Fiona grinned. This was great stuff.

“There’s more.”

“More?” asked Fiona. This was getting good!

“Yes, more. I lied about my last name. Until last Thursday, Maggie mine thought my last name was Armstrong.”

“She did? Why did you do that, Ian?” Fiona knew she had a story that would go viral now.

“I wanted her to fall for who I am, not that stupid Most Eligible Bachelor nonsense. Luckily for me, she did.”

“Very lucky for you, Ian,” smiled Fiona. “But you waited how long to tell her the truth?”

“Just over three months. I was going to tell her on Friday evening, over a very romantic dinner at the Savoy Grill. We always go to the Savoy Gill to celebrate things…but…”

“But?” Fiona was on the edge of her seat. This was making such a good video interview. No doubt it would go viral, no doubt.

“But…My father unfortunately let the cat out of the bag and Maggie was so angry with me that she nearly walked out on me, but I kissed her silly until she came to her senses and we got the engagement ring from Cartier on Friday.
Show, Fiona and the photographer your five carat ring, baby.”

Maggie smiled. Ian was an old hand at this publicity business.

“I wanted to buy her a bigger diamond, Fiona, but she wouldn’t let me. She said anything bigger would be too ostentatious…”

“When are you getting married?”

“Four weeks Saturday, my father’s dahlias will be in full bloom then and my mother and Maggie thought it would be the perfect backdrop for our vows. Mother has promised to keep the guest list down to five hundred.  

Maggie bit her lip, she hadn’t heard that yet.

“Can we have exclusive rights to film the wedding?”

“I understand from a reliable source that Hello will pay half a million,”
lied Ian.

“Well, we would go seven hundred fifty for print, TV and video rights,” said Fiona. “You were the top of that Most Eligible Bachelor List two years in a row.”

“We’ll take it,” said Maggie quickly. “I’m assuming your company will provide the security to keep the rest of the press away?”

“Oh yes, we certainly will, Maggie,” smiled Fiona. “We won’t let anybody else in on our exclusive!”

“Where are you going for your honeymoon?”

“Greece, of course,” said Ian, again lying through his teeth.

“Are you pregnant?”

Maggie gulped. This was very personal.

“Not yet,” said Ian smoothly, “but we’re having fun working on it. We’ve promised my mother and Maggie’s a grandchild as soon as we can.”

The questions went on for another twenty minutes, and then they drank champagne as the videotape was downloaded onto
DailyDirt.com
. It was live within seconds.

Fiona checked for hits half an hour later. “Over forty thousand hits in the first half hour. That’s excellent. This will go viral.”

“Good,” said Ian. “I want this to hit the headlines. The sooner everybody knows, the sooner they’ll leave us alone.”

“I’ll make sure I do everything I can to make it hit the headlines, Ian,” promised Fiona.

“In that case, let’s have another bottle of champagne,” smiled Ian.

Amanda, home after a hard day’s work, had her dinner and then turned on her laptop and checked the
DailyDirt.com
website for the latest gossip.

“Shit, damn, hell! If I hadn’t been so busy at work today, I could have figured this out and made some money selling the story to the tabloids.
Maybe I’d have made a thousand pounds….

“Hmmm...
Perhaps Maggie will invite me to the wedding, and I can take some pictures with my mobile and sell them...”

Amanda licked her lips at the thought of all the money she’d make off her exclusive wedding pictures.

She was quite disgusted when the
DailyDirt.com
security staff confiscated all mobiles and all cameras as the wedding guests entered the garden.

After the reception, Ian and Maggie jumped into his vintage Jaguar and roared down the motorway toward the Airport. As soon as they were sure they’d shaken the paparazzi, they changed direction.

Devon was the perfect place for their honeymoon. They stayed in their stone house on the cliff for three weeks, doing nothing much but making love.