Lainie was obviously appalled, which perversely made Richard feel better. Bad temper put red flags under her cheekbones and caused her short, straight nose to wrinkle. It was all very ineffectual. She didn’t have the face for intimidation. Her features were deceptively sweet. If she’d thrown tantrums as a child, her parents had probably smiled tolerantly and chucked her under the chin.
“You want us to do a TV interview? About...this?” Lainie asked, horrified.
“Could you not gesture directly at me when you say that?” Richard asked. He leaned back against the wall and crossed one ankle over the other. “It’s bad for my self-esteem.”
She ignored him and continued to address Pat. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Neither of us comes across that well in screen interviews anyway, and if we’re supposed to be addressing our...relationship...” She managed to get the word out, but it rolled sourly around her tongue. She looked as if she’d taken a swallow of milk and realised it had gone off about six weeks ago.
“Speak for yourself, Tig,” he said, and her sea-green eyes turned almost teal with irritation. Personally, he was starting to feel quite relaxed. There was something very soothing about letting Lainie fight their battles. She was so delightfully...flammable. “I always keep my head during interviews.”
“That’s why you’ve almost driven Lynette Stern into a nervous breakdown, is it? Allow me to send you a link to a clip reel on YouTube. It’s a three-minute Not-Safe-For-Work montage of your polite responses to interview questions. The censored version is one continuous bleep.”
Richard’s smile grew. “Have you been looking me up on the web?”
There was an audible click of teeth as Lainie pressed her lips together. She could probably make judicious use of Lynette’s fuck-you emoticons.
“Ostensibly, the interview is to promote The Cavalier’s Tribute and give an insight into what it’s like to be a young—” Pat eyed them. “Youngish actor in the modern West End.”
Lainie looked even more annoyed. “Well, I’m younger than Richard.”
“You’ve always seemed practically infantile to me,” he told her comfortingly, and her fingers closed around the ballpoint pen he’d left on his desk. He suspected he was about two minutes away from having it neatly inserted into his jugular.
“Obviously, Tara Whitlow is going to broach the relationship angle. I think it’s best if you play for discretion. The less you say, the more the public will infer for themselves. Sadie Foster is likely to be voluble on the subject of her affair with Jack Trenton, so I’d prefer you to present a contrast. You’ve both had media training. I’m sure you’ll behave sensibly.”
It was admirable, the level of threat Pat could impart without altering the tone of her voice or intensity of her expression.
“Sadie?” Lainie flung his spare jacket off the desk stool, and he watched as fifteen hundred quid of full-grain leather sailed carelessly into one corner of the room. She sat down and fixed Pat with a furious stare. “Is Sadie Foster in the same interview slot?”
“And Jack.” Pat casually removed a speck of fluff from her lapel. “It was originally their booking, to promote Les Mis. But the band scheduled to appear at eight had to pull out due to ‘illness’—i.e. one of them has been carted off to rehab. So the producers have extended Sadie and Jack’s slot, and decided to include you and Richard, as well. The Palladium has had enough free publicity recently. We need to keep our end up.”
Lainie’s response to that was short, explicit and unprintable.
Really, she was growing on him all the time.
Chapter Four
London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. 48m
Oh, it’s awkward. Tara Whitlow tries to
interview West End stars. Miss the live clip? Catch the replay here...ow.ly/QT4Jp
There was something sadistic about installing harsh fluorescent lighting in a breakfast TV studio. Lainie took one horrified stare at her reflection and dove into a makeup chair. She didn’t consider herself that vain, but au naturel was not working for her at ten past six in the morning. She was usually drooling into her pillow at this hour, halfway through a recurring sex dream about James Bond. Daniel Craig’s body. Sean Connery’s voice.
A smiling young woman appeared in the mirror behind her, holding a coffee cup in one hand and a bottle of foundation in the other, and Lainie tried not to actually weep at her feet.
“Hi, I’m Sharon,” said the goddess, handing her the coffee. “Milk and two sugars, was it?”
“Perfect. Thank you.” Lainie drank half of it in one go, while trying not to look directly at the sobering reality check in the mirror. In her head, her skin was not pasty to the point that it had actually acquired a green tinge. She did not have massive dark circles under her eyes. And she definitely didn’t have two huge spots on her forehead.
Outside the open door, she heard the clatter of approaching high heels.
And faintly, in the back of her mind, the theme music for the Wicked Witch of the West.