‘You don’t understand! Any evidence you might have is actually my personal property. You’re in receipt of stolen goods. That’s a crime,’ Ellie explained calmly. Or she was trying to stay in the same ballpark as calm. ‘I need you to return these items to me by courier immediately. I’ll give you my work address.’
Sam Curtis chuckled. ‘Yeah, so anyway, darling, I’d love to meet up for a chat. When’s good for you?’
‘Never. I need my box back. Are you going to give it back to me?’
‘It doesn’t work like that, sweetheart.’
‘Right. OK. Well, I’m going to call the police then.’ Ellie hung up and she was all set to call 999, one quivering finger even hovering over the ‘9’, but then she recalled the gory details of the phone-hacking scandal. The police all took backhanders from the newspapers and they’d do nothing to help. There really was only one other option, though it was the very last thing Ellie wanted to do. The very last thing. She’d rather have rectal surgery without an anaesthetic.
‘You’ve reached Wyndham, Pryce and Lewis,’ said a disembodied voice, once Ellie was back at work and had unearthed a number after a bit of judicious googling. Billy Kay’s legal affairs were handled by a firm established in 1732, which had expanded into entertainment law over the last thirty years and subsequently opened offices in LA and New York, though Ellie hoped that the Clerkenwell branch would be able to help. ‘If you know the extension of the person you wish to speak to, please dial it now. Otherwise leave your name and a short message.’
‘This is Ellie Cohen. I need to speak to someone urgently. Very urgently indeed. Please call me back right away.’ It was very hard for Ellie to leave a coherent message when all she wanted to do was burst into tears. As it was, she forgot to leave her number or direct her message specifically to whoever dealt with Billy Kay and had to ring again and leave another message, which sounded even more frantic and garbled than the first one.
Ellie sat rigid with terror at her desk all day, office door firmly shut so she’d have some privacy. It was impossible to settle to anything, even checking final drafts of important contracts that Vaughn needed a.s.a.p. He kept sending Piers to ask where they were, and every time she needed a wee Ellie had to gallop down the corridor like she was trying to break the landspeed record because it would be typical of the lawyer to call while she was in the loo.
At just after five Vaughn suddenly appeared in Ellie’s office to demand an explanation for why she’d spent all day not doing anything that even remotely resembled her job.
‘I’ve been waiting on a call,’ Ellie said, and then her mobile rang and the number looked vaguely Central London-ish, so it had to be the lawyer and not, dear God no, another reporter. ‘Um, I kind of need to take this.’
‘I fail to see how I’m stopping you from answering your phone,’ Vaughn snapped as he loomed over her desk. He did love to loom.
‘It’s a personal call,’ Ellie said despairingly. ‘Deeply personal. May I have some privacy?’
She didn’t dare look at Vaughn’s face, but picked up her phone and said a very cautious, very reticent ‘Hello?’ even as Vaughn strode towards the door muttering something under his breath that featured the phrase ‘fire you’. That was the very least of her problems. Her biggest problem was sighing down the phone. ‘Miss Cohen?’ queried someone who managed to sound reproachful and censorious, as if he’d been the one waiting on her call. ‘This is David Gold from Wyndham, Pryce and Lewis. Shall we pencil in a meeting? At your earliest convenience would be best.’
Ellie was alarmed and relieved all at once. Though the alarm that, yes, actually, bad times were a-coming quickly obliterated any relief that the lawyer was taking her seriously. ‘Well, I can be with you in, say, half an hour?’
‘Tomorrow morning will be fine,’ David Gold backtracked, like the fact that her life was about to collapse in on her wasn’t that urgent. ‘Eight o’clock. My office.’
He didn’t try to make it sound like a suggestion, and despite her fear Ellie curled her toes in irritation. Then she checked her calendar. ‘I have a breakfast meeting at eight thirty in Piccadilly. Can we make it a bit later?’
‘Surely you can rearrange your meeting.’ Again, it didn’t sound like a question, but Ellie couldn’t. Not when she was meeting a really high-maintenance celebrity and the equally high-maintenance and exceedingly whiny artist who’d been commissioned to paint her portrait. It had taken weeks to find this mutually agreeable time slot.
‘I absolutely can’t,’ she insisted. ‘And I’ve been waiting all day for you to get back to me. All day! I don’t think you appreciate how nightmarish this situation is.’
‘Oh, it’s hardly nightmarish.’ He sounded positively breezy as if potential tabloid scandals were nothing to be scared about. ‘Now, it would be much more convenient if you could come here …’
‘I’ve already told you I can’t, but …’
A sigh. ‘I suppose I could come to you. Seven thirty? Where’s your meeting?’
‘The Wolseley,’ Ellie replied waspishly; all this grandstanding about who was coming to whom and at what time felt like a power-play. ‘I’ll change my reservation.’
‘Until tomorrow then.’
‘So, do you think we have a case to sue them? I mean, they’re clearly in the wrong, aren’t they? You can get my box back and make sure that they—’
‘Miss Cohen, this can all wait until tomorrow. To be honest, your message didn’t make much sense. Neither of your messages did. You were somewhat hysterical.’
‘Distressed. I was distressed.’
‘Either way, we can discuss how to move forward when we meet tomorrow morning,’ David Gold said smoothly. ‘Have a good evening.’
He rang off, leaving Ellie even more discomfited than she had been before he’d called.
Chapter Eight
Normally Ellie loved having a breakfast meeting at the Wolseley, the former 1920s showroom of the Wolseley car company, once more restored to its former Byzantine glory. Every time Ellie was seated in the cavernous dining room with its immense marble pillars and arches, she felt as if she was on the set of a Busby Berkeley musical, and half expected to see a bevy of Ziegfeld Girls suddenly undulate down the sweeping staircase.
Not this Tuesday morning, though. It might have been airy and cool in the restaurant, but the tight armholes of Ellie’s sleeveless white dress were getting damp and perspiration was beginning to dot her forehead.
With one eye on the entrance, she tried surreptitiously to blot her face with her Laura Mercier setting powder. And she might just as well dab a little more Secret Camouflage concealer under her eyes because two nights of imagining worst-case scenarios rather than sleeping had taken their toll.
‘Hello?’
Of course, the lawyer would arrive in that exact moment when she’d yet to blend in the smear of concealer under each eye. Ellie reluctantly looked up at a familiar face and dropped her make-up bag. It was the man she’d met at Glastonbury! The man who’d made her tingle before they’d been so rudely interrupted. She could feel the tingles again; lifting up her hair follicles, slithering down her spine, racing all the way to her feet, then retracing their electric path back up again.
He was wearing an impeccably tailored grey suit, his tie an almost perfect match for his dark blue eyes, which were wide with surprise, and his curls had been ruthlessly tamed and submitted into a side parting. He seemed more buttoned-up than he had at Glastonbury and he was looking at Ellie in disbelief too.
Her own hair had been coaxed into a sleek, slick ponytail, her dress was tailored and form-fitting, and her only jewellery was the elegant platinum wristwatch that Sadie and Morry had bought her for her twenty-first birthday.
‘Yes! Hello! Well, this is a surprise.’ She smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back, and stood there with a look of consternation, which suited him far less than the engaging grin she’d seen just over a week ago. ‘I was so embarrassed about what happened at
Glastonbury. I don’t know what you must have thought of me.’
He swallowed. ‘You? You’re Velvet Cohen?’
Oh, no. ‘Um, yes.’
None of Ellie’s worst-case scenarios had prepared her for this. She watched in dismay as his face tightened. Then he looked down at the marble floor. It was like a door being slammed shut.
A second passed, then he was looking at her again and smiling. It showed off his even, white teeth and should have made Ellie feel more at ease but didn’t.
‘There wasn’t time for introductions before, was there? I’m David Gold from Wyndham, Pryce and Lewis,’ he said, and he held out his hand.
Ellie half stood up, went to shake his hand, realised her fingertips were smeared with make-up and abandoned her plans in favour of sitting back down and frantically patting the skin under her eyes with one hand as she tried to scoop up her cosmetics, which had spilled over the table.
‘Sorry. For concealer, this stuff is really hard to conceal,’ she mumbled, as a waiter pulled out the chair opposite so David Gold could sit down.
There was a stubborn streak that wouldn’t cooperate. Ellie wiped it away with an impatient hand and steeled herself to glance across to see David Gold straighten his tie, then confirm that his cufflinks were in full working order. Ellie resisted the urge to check the concealer situation again and tucked her make-up bag away.
‘This is such a weird coincidence,’ she said, because she had to say something.
David Gold looked at Ellie – took his time about it too – then his eyes came to rest on her watch and his lips twisted. She was beginning to doubt that he was the same man she’d met. Maybe he had a twin, or a doppelgänger, because now he made a tiny moue of distaste, so fleeting that most other people wouldn’t have noticed it. Ellie, however, was scrutinising his face for a sign, some small glimmer of that connection she’d felt at Glastonbury. She couldn’t see one because he didn’t appear to share her fond memories, though that was hardly surprising with the scene that Richey had caused. Ellie held her hands to her suddenly burning cheeks.
‘Yes, it’s very weird,’ he agreed at last.
‘You have to let me explain and apologise about what happened at Glastonbury,’ Ellie said with a forced brightness just as a waiter approached their table. David Gold ordered a pot of tea. Ellie’s stomach had been tied into several gnarly knots ever since his phone call the evening before, so she ordered only a cappuccino and sat back in her chair nervously to try again. ‘Anyway, I was—’
‘What happened at Glastonbury really isn’t important right now. We’ve got a lot to get through.’ As Ellie was processing that nugget of information, he gave her another smile that was kinder and seemed to have some substance to it. ‘So to recap, a vengeful ex-boyfriend has documentary evidence proving your paternity and has sold his story.’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘I’m really sorry that I haven’t got happier news but the papers are going to run with the story on Sunday,’ David Gold interrupted softly, as if he was genuinely sorry. ‘Well, the Sunday Chronicle is. I’m afraid that the other papers will probably pick it up in their late editions.’
Ellie hadn’t dared let herself hope that this mess could be salvaged, but it still came as a shock. Like when she stubbed her toe or banged her head on an open cupboard door, her eyes were watering and she found herself struggling to take in air, while David Gold folded his arms and looked at her from under his lashes. He was silent and still, as if he was waiting for Ellie to speak, but it was all she could do to breathe in and out. Talking wasn’t going to be happening any time soon.
‘Our objective should be damage limitation,’ he said calmly. He looked down at his tea, which had just arrived, checked the knot on his tie yet again with long, elegant fingers and when he raised his head, his smile was a little wider, showing more teeth. Then he leaned towards Ellie and lowered his voice conspiratorially. The general effect was quite overwhelming. Purists might argue that the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes but Ellie could feel herself being drawn into his gravitational pull. ‘I appreciate that this might all seem very discombobulating but everything is going to be fine.’
‘Is it?’ she asked sceptically, because nothing seemed as if it was going to be fine. Unless … ‘There’s no way you can stop this? You can’t make this all go away?’
‘I have tried,’ he said with a little shake of his head. ‘I’ve had clients in similar situations so I know the ropes and I’m going to do everything I can to get you through this.’ He took out his BlackBerry and peered at the screen. ‘Does your mother know what’s been going on?’
Ellie had momentarily allowed herself to feel buoyed up by David Gold’s can-do attitude, but now she groaned and put her head in her hands. How was she going to break the news to Ari?
‘You understand that it’s vitally important that she doesn’t talk to the press?’ David Gold said firmly. ‘Can you guarantee that?’
There was no need for him to act as if Ari was a loose-lipped loose cannon, when actually she’d never, ever spoken to the press. There had been times when no one could have blamed her for selling her story – for instance when Ellie’s father was shifting millions of units and playing sell-out stadium tours and not paying maintenance despite the results of the DNA test he’d insisted on. ‘I got the only thing I wanted from him, I don’t want his money and I’m certainly not going to beg for it,’ Ari would say, which was sweet and noble, but still, palimony would have been very welcome when she also refused to take money from Morry and Sadie, and the bailiffs were at the door, or Ellie needed new shoes and everyone else in her class was going to Brittany for a week to study the French in their natural habitat.
‘My mother would never talk to the press,’ Ellie said tightly. ‘I’m offended you even think that she would.’
He put his hands up as if he was trying to ward off a swarm of angry wasps. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that, but what we all need to remember is that Olivia is the innocent victim in all this and, understandably, she’s devastated.’ He’d lowered his voice again as if he was letting Ellie in on a secret. ‘That’s why we have to work together to weather the coming storm.’
Ellie hadn’t expected ever to see him again and never in several lifetimes could she have imagined that their connection would turn out to be more real than metaphysical; that he was her father’s lawyer and he was being conciliatory and fairly considerate, which had to be a directive from her father. She wasn’t on her own in this, although she was still about to be flung to the press. Her head was pounding with the effort to take it all in and try to ignore the painful prickling in her chest when he’d mentioned Olivia as if she was a close, personal friend of his and not just a glacially blonde woman in a newspaper photo.
‘You’ll be all right,’ he told her softly. Ellie thought his voice might be the undoing of her. ‘But you have to stay on message. Maintain a dignified silence. I’m sure you know the drill. Will you do that for us?’
Us? Us? Like she was on the same side as her father when there had always been an abyss between them. That simply didn’t ring true for Ellie. ‘I’m used to being more proactive.’ Her voice was strained, as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. ‘Maintaining a dignified silence sounds like a good idea but there has to be something more we can do.’
David Gold sucked in a breath. ‘Miss Cohen … may I call you Velvet?’
‘Nobody calls me Velvet. It’s Ellie.’
‘And you must call me David,’ he urged her. He was being really nice – friendly, even. But at Glastonbury he’d been different. He’d grinned and joked and there’d been a sparkle in his eyes. Of course, he was in work mode now and, God, he was her father’s lawyer so there was no way in hell that there could ever be anything between them, but Ellie wasn’t sure she trusted David Gold’s smiles. She actually shivered as if his ready smile was tempered with a cold, steely edge that froze everything i
n its path. ‘So, Ellie, what did you mean when you said you wanted to deal with this proactively?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Couldn’t we put out a statement that says … well … that we … that he …’
She faltered, then stopped altogether because much as she preferred to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, she had no brilliant plan. There was nothing to put in a statement that would pre-empt a tabloid story. Nothing to say about the non-existent relationship she had with her father that was going to give the Sunday Chronicle’s readers warm fuzzies over their tea and toast.
She slumped back in her seat. David Gold sipped his tea, then steepled his fingers. ‘You have to trust that I know what’s best for you,’ he said smoothly, though Ellie rarely gave her trust to people she barely knew. ‘So, I will continue to do what I can to smooth this over and you’ll proceed with a say-nothing, do-nothing policy.’
‘Do you even know how bad the story might be?’ she demanded, pushing away her coffee because it would choke her. ‘Can’t we sue them?’
‘On what grounds do you suggest we sue them? They have the DNA results, so we can’t really sue them for slander.’
‘But they were stolen,’ Ellie reminded him, her voice rising perilously high so the two rapier-thin women on the next table, who had each spent the last half-hour picking their way around a pink grapefruit half, turned to stare at her. ‘Every single scrap of so-called evidence they have was taken without my permission.’
‘Well, it would be hard to prove that. Very hard.’ He spread his hands wide, measured out another smile. ‘Do you see what a tricky position we’re in?’
‘I’m just saying that there has to be something we can do,’ Ellie said persistently. ‘I don’t want them printing lies about me or my mother.’
David Gold dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘No, neither do we.’ He took a deep breath. ‘It would really mean a lot to him if you were on board with this.’