“How much do they have?” Richard asked. The question was completely toneless. His gaze didn’t budge from Lainie. She frowned back, trying to ask through her expression.
Pulling his key from his pocket, he beeped the lock on the Ferrari, jerked open the rear door and lifted his iPad from the backseat. He was still studying her with disconcerting impersonality while he brought up a web browser and started a news search.
“Yes,” he said into the phone, and switched his gaze to the screen. A betraying nerve convulsed beside his eye. “Yes, I will.” He ended the call without saying goodbye, and silently turned the iPad around to show Lainie.
It was a breaking news item in London Celebrity. Richard Troy’s Secret Family Tragedy Revealed! blasted the headline, and then in smaller type below: Late MP Sir Franklin Troy’s 1994 “heart attack” shockingly outed as a suicide.
Richard flipped the iPad over and continued to read the article. Lainie was unable to speak.
“Coincidence?” he said at last, almost casually. He closed the iPad with a decisive snap, and it might as well have been a sound effect for his fracturing temper. “Because I don’t remember telling anyone else my private family business recently.”
“I’m sorry.” Lainie barely recognised her own voice. She wasn’t even aware that she was going to speak until she heard the words. “I’m so sorry, Richard. It just...slipped out. There’s no excuse.”
“It just ‘slipped out’?” Richard repeated with awful sarcasm. He was very pale. “You just ‘accidentally’ contacted the tabloids and mentioned that, by the way, that insane bastard Sir Franklin Troy shot himself.”
“Does it say he shot himself?” Lainie was bewildered as well as absolutely horrified. How much digging had Will had time to do before he’d sent off his tattling email? And where would he have the resources? He was hardly MI5.
“No, it doesn’t. I see you had enough circumspection to at least skimp on the details.” He shook his head once, as if he’d sustained a blow. “Why?” he bit out. “It doesn’t even make sense. It’s completely out of character.”
“I didn’t tell the press.” Lainie closed her eyes. “I would never do that.”
“Then...what? My house is bugged? London Celebrity is hiring long-range telepaths now?”
“I told Will.”
Richard went still again, and his fiery eyes went oddly blank. “You told Will.”
“Yes.” It was a strangled rasp. Lainie put out a hand to his arm, but wasn’t surprised when he deliberately removed it. “He made me furious with something he said about you, and it just...slipped out. I’m sorry.”
After a moment, Richard said, still without expression, “I’ll take you home.”
“Richard...”
He opened the door for her. With a last helpless glance at his impenetrable face, Lainie slowly got into the car.
It was the worst drive of her life. As they neared the familiar sights and lights of Bayswater, he asked without looking at her, “Did you tell him why?”
“No, I did not.” Lainie jerked around in her seat. “Of course I didn’t!”
“It’ll probably come out anyway,” Richard said, as if he was making a casual remark over the breakfast table as to the cunning inevitability of the British media. “It isn’t the best foundation on which to campaign against Westfield’s influence. Bad enough to have a father who was a known fascist about the arts. Not a good look when he’s a vote-fiddler, as well.”
Lainie put her hand to her forehead and said nothing.
When the car pulled up on her street, Richard walked her to the door. He was silently, remotely polite for the first time in their relationship. And she hated it.
Before he left, he looked down at her. A flash of intense emotion faded into indifference. “I suppose we got a bit carried away by the pretence.”
She still didn’t reply.
“It’s easy to lose sight of reality when you’re immersed in a role,” he went on, echoing her once-upon-a-time sentiments. He paused and the muscle in his jaw jumped again. “However, I think that particular run is over.”
It was a good exit line, delivered with so little emphasis that it avoided going too soap opera.
She didn’t watch him drive away.
Chapter Ten
London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. 3h
Are things over between Richard Troy and Elaine Graham? Actress looks grim as more details emerge of Troy’s dodgy past...goo.gl/2D5Gk8
This was, no doubt, the place in the script where Lainie was supposed to take to her bed, sobbing out her broken heart into a carton of ice cream. She had taken that option when Will had fractured her pride.
She wasn’t letting go of Richard so easily.
After a terrible night’s sleep, she got up on Monday morning and put on one of her favourite outfits. As a little confidence boost to start the day, a flattering jumper ranked dismally below a naked, sleepy cuddle with Richard.
Her bed smelled like his cologne. He’d left a shoot-’em-up spy novel on her coffee table. Her chocolate biscuit supply was suspiciously depleted. His presence was all over her flat.