The Cinderella Reflex (29 page)

“Like buying a radio station as a toy for yourself and pitting all the staff there against each other in a stupid contest?” Tess countered. “It’s been nothing but back-stabbing since you showed up. I’ve lost the only friend I had here in the process.” Thinking about Andrea fuelled her anger further.

“Ah, the contest,” Jack said heavily. “That does seem to have caused more trouble than it was worth. What can I say – it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

His phone bleeped. He glanced at the screen and then threw the mobile on the desk. His mouth was set in a grim line.

“Louisa thinks she’s just discovered who Richard’s mistress might be. Helene Harper.” He looked at Tess. “Is it?”

Tess bit her lip.

“I asked you in the restaurant and you said then you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know! And I don’t know now either. Not for sure.”

He stared at her so hard that she felt obliged to offer him more. “Look – there are rumours about them. But that is as much as I know. Helene was – is – my boss, not my friend. She never confided in me.”

“So, who does she confide in?” He was drumming his fingertips again, his voice ominously low.

“I don’t know!” Tess felt uncomfortable as she thought of Rosa suggesting to Helene that she might be pregnant. “I don’t think it’s any of my business,” she said finally.

His face twisted. “You know, you’re right. And what you do in your personal life is none of mine.”

“Look, I am sorry the station got the wrong sort of publicity,” Tess offered an olive branch. “But as I’ve tried to explain, it wasn’t intentional.”

Jack clicked and unclicked his pen into the silence. Tess felt unnerved in the distinctly chilly atmosphere. “So. If there’s nothing else?”

He looked at her appraisingly, as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. “No, that’s it,” he said finally.

Tess scraped back her chair, stood up and left without a backward glance. She felt shaky after the altercation and badly wanted to go and have a cup of tea to calm herself down. But she was barely out of the building when her mobile started to ring. She fished it out of her pocket and stared at the name flashing in the glass panel.
Chris.
She felt sick when she thought of what she had just learned about him.

“Chris. How are you?” She forced herself to sound pleased to hear from him.

“Tess! Have you seen the
Killty Times
?”

“Not yet,” Tess lied. “Er ... how bad is it?”

“There’s a picture of you and Ollie Andrews and ... well, it’s pretty bad, actually. How come you haven’t seen it yet?”

“Oh, I heard about it, but I can’t bear to look at it. Maybe,” Tess had a brainwave, “we could meet up and we can look at it together?”

“Oh! Okay so.” Chris sounded reluctant. “Look, I’m near Killty today on a bit of business. I can meet you now if you like? I have ... er ... something to tell you.”

Don’t bother
, Tess felt like screaming at him,
I already know.
But some masochistic part of her wanted to see how he would handle telling her about his fiancée.

“I can meet you later, after the show. Say the Travel Cafe at lunch?”

“Em ...” Chris began but Tess had already closed down her mobile. For the rest of the morning she forced herself to concentrate on work, but as soon as she left the radio station building, she could feel the fury rising up in her.

She broke into a power-walk down the coast road, each stride bringing her closer to the showdown. She could still hardly believe Chris was engaged. There had been no trace of a woman in his ultra-masculine apartment. Come to think of it, her own bits and pieces were still there, actually – that hideous business suit he’d talked her into buying. Business-like but sexy, indeed! And her to-die-for reunion dress. How had he explained those to his fiancée?

On the other hand, it made sense of some of the things she’d found so confusing. How Chris knew so much about women’s fashion, for instance. How he was on first name terms with celebrity hairdresser Mr Cheung when he had so little hair himself. And of course, why he hadn’t wanted to sleep with her ...

By the time Tess arrived at the cafe, she had worked herself into such a state that she had to stand outside for a few minutes, taking deep, slow breaths to try and calm herself down. It had started to rain and the cafe window was fogged with condensation. She rubbed out a patch of visibility with the sleeve of her jacket and spotted Chris, nursing a coffee and reading the newspaper. Reluctantly, Tess pushed open the door.

“Hi.” She slipped into the chair opposite him and nodded towards the photograph of her and Ollie that he was scrutinising. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad would you say it is?”

Chris slid the newspaper across the table to her. “Nine?”

Tess pretended to study it for a few seconds. “You know, I’ve never seen Ollie so drunk. I suppose the news that the gig was going to an outsider made him feel threatened.”

“Right.” Chris coughed and gestured for the waiter to take Tess’s order.

“Just coffee, please.” Tess smiled before turning her attention back to Chris. She reached out and grasped his hand. “You seem a bit edgy this morning. Anything wrong? Apart from the fact that your girlfriend made a show of herself last night, of course.”

He snatched away his hand and ran it through his hair. “No – there’s nothing wrong. It’s just I feel sorry for you with this splashed all over the newspapers, that’s all.”

“So what did you want to tell me?”

“Em ... it’s true that I went in for the It’s My Show contest myself. And before you say anything – I would have told you if you’d ever asked me!”

Tess laughed out loud at his cheek. “So I’ve heard. So why were you so keen on coaching me to get the gig?”

“I was coaching you to get the agony aunt slot back,” Chris corrected her. “I always said your own show would be a bit of a stretch for you.”

That was true enough, Tess had to admit. He had. “
You can’t go from hero to zero overnight, Tess.
” Another of his meaningless mottos.

“You used me,” Tess said quietly. “You wanted me to get my job back so I could get you inside information about Atlantic 1 FM.”

“Yeah, well, that didn’t work very well, did it?” Chris grumbled. “I found out more myself in the end.”

“Quite the intrepid investigator, aren’t we?”

“Look, I heard a rumour months back that Jack McCabe might be taking over Atlantic 1 FM. Everyone knows how he’s made a success of everything he’s turned his hand to, so I figured he would definitely get a national license. I started to listen to the station day and night trying to figure out how to get a gig for myself.” He looked hard at Tess. “That’s how I found out that you worked there. I heard your name credit as a producer on This Morning with Ollie Andrews
.
Er ...” he looked a bit shamefaced. “That’s why I organised the reunion. So I could meet you again.”

Tess exhaled. “That’s a very elaborate plan.”

“Don’t make it sound as if it’s the crime of the century.” Chris went on the attack. “It’s the business we’re in. You have to do stuff to thrive in it. But then you wouldn’t know that – traipsing around the world for the last ten years like some hippie. Some of us have to work
hard
for a living!”

Tess sipped her coffee in silence.

“And was what I did really so bad, if you really think about it? It was of benefit to both of us. Look at you now. Your hair, your make-up. You look like a different person to that dowdy girl I met at the reunion!”

“Woman, Chris, not girl,” Tess hissed. “And as it happens, I don’t think there was so much wrong with me in the first place that I had to be transformed into a completely new person!”

“Well, that’s debatable,” Chris said huffily. “Anyhow, I’m surprised you’re taking all of this so personally. You need to toughen up. If I was to tell you all the things I’ve done to further my career over the last few years ...”

“Oh, I can guess. Like portraying yourself as free and single when you’re actually engaged,” Tess said quietly.

Chris’s nostrils flared. “Who told you about Penelope?”

“Jack McCabe told me, earlier today. So then I knew it had to be true.” Tess gave a short laugh.

“You were talking to Jack today? Did he say who got the gig?” Chris asked quickly.

Tess looked at him in astonishment. “What sort of person cheats on their fiancée to get inside information about a
job
, Chris?” she exploded.

“I didn’t cheat,” Chris reminded her sharply. “After ten years of bed-hopping I’m trying to settle down. So even though Penelope lives in Spain and we don’t get to see each other often enough, I still didn’t sleep with you. It’s not that I didn’t want to,” he added by way of a compliment.

“That makes me feel so much better.” Tess felt a stab of sympathy for Penelope, whoever she was. She pulled out her purse to pay for her coffee, wondering how she had deluded herself for so long. His phone bleeped and as he flicked the screen to scan his message she stood up to go. “Goodbye, Chris,” she said quietly.

But he seemed to have forgotten that Tess was in the same room, let alone at the same table. He was staring at his phone, a strange expression on his face. She shook her head and walked towards the door.

“Tess! Come back!”

“What is it now?” She turned around wearily.

“I did it, Tess. I got the gig! It’s My Show is mine ... I won the contest.” Chris punched the air with his fist. “Ollie Andrews was bloody right to be so worried last night! And I bet he had one hell of a hangover this morning!”

Tess stared at him.
Chris
had got the gig? He had actually been successful in using his talent for self-promotion and deceit to beat all of them?

“Well,” he was looking at her expectantly. “Say something!”

“I don’t know what to say,” Tess said honestly.
Fuck off
crossed her mind but she honestly felt too drained to get the words out.

“Try congratulations,” Chris suggested. “Because it’s important we get on together. I may as well tell you now – I’ve asked for you to be my producer.”

Tess looked at him with incredulity for several seconds. And then the ridiculousness of the situation swept over her and she started to laugh. She laughed until the tears were pouring down her cheeks and Chris was finally jolted out his self-absorption.

“What’s so funny?” he asked in injured tones.

She stopped laughing just long enough to get the words out. “You are, Chris. You are.”

Helene stared balefully at the radio. The weird wallpaper music reminded her of her visit to the spa, before Richard had fired a torpedo into her life. The music was a temporary replacement for the This Morning show, because Ollie hadn’t been seen since he’d been summoned to a meeting with Jack McCabe the morning after the launch party. It was a sign of the new, meaner atmosphere at Atlantic 1 FM. Richard may have given Ollie a warning shot for getting drunk at the party but that would have been the end of it. This time, there had been a brief announcement that Ollie was gone on an “extended break” and that Chris Conroy, the rank outsider who had scooped the It’s My Show contest from underneath all their noses, would soon be hosting his own, “hot new show.”

According to Sara, Tess Morgan hadn’t even realised Conroy was in for the gig. Helene shook her head in disbelief at Tess’s naivety. But then, was she in any position to judge other people’s gullibility, considering how her own life was going? She gripped the yellow pencil she was holding more firmly and tried to concentrate. All her life she had worked out her dilemmas in this fashion, on a plain sheet of paper. She would list pros on one side, cons on the other. Then she weighed the lists up, added on what her gut instinct was telling her to do and – there it was – a decision she trusted, and one that she rarely veered from once she’d made it.

But now her tried and trusted method wasn’t working. Helene shrugged her shoulders, trying to unknot the tension in her muscles. The night of her birthday had been the strangest of her life. She had checked into the hotel and sat in her single room in dazed silence, trying to piece together how her life had started to unravel. But she was still too shocked to work it out and she went through the motions of her well-practised bedtime routine like a zombie: taking off her make-up, doing her stretches, brushing her hair one hundred times like her grandmother had instructed her when she was a little girl and which she had carried out every night of her life since.

It was when she finally lay down on the strange hotel bed and tried in vain to go to sleep that she remembered the envelope Richard had left for her. She stared into the dark, wondering whether she should open it. She switched on the bedside lamp and pulled it out of her overnight bag, staring at its oblong shape for ages. When she finally looked inside she found a birthday card with
To the One I Love
emblazoned across it. The around-the-world-ticket, the one that had given her such a thrill when she had first spotted it on Richard’s desk, was tucked inside. She scanned the accompanying note.
Sweetheart,
he had written in expensive, black-inked pen.
I know you always wanted to travel, and I thought this would be a good time for you to get your wish.

Helene stopped reading, her brow crinkled up with confusion. Why had Richard still left this for her, even after she had told him she was pregnant? How, exactly, did he expect her to use an around-the-world ticket now? The answer came to her in a flash of unwanted insight. It was because he was determined that nothing would interfere with his pay-off money from Jack McCabe. Not even her. Especially not her! He probably figured she would have an abortion and use the ticket to get over it. The hurt hit Helene with such force that she had to squeeze her eyes shut against the pain.

She leaned her head back against the headboard, wondering how she was ever going to get over this. She had to force herself to finish reading Richard’s note.
I am enclosing a cheque to cover your hotel and living expenses and will try to arrange for your job to be kept open for you. When you come back in six months’ time, I will have severed all ties with Atlantic 1 FM and I’m sure we will resume our romance then. All my love always, Richard. x
Helene let the letter flutter out her hands. Richard wouldn’t have known when he was writing this that in six months’ time Helene would have a belly like a whale. The thought of him coming around to resume their romance when she was in that condition started her giggling. But it was a high-pitched, nervous snigger that turned rapidly to tears, and the more Helene thought about the situation, the more hysterical she became. The best laid plans, she thought wearily, finally drying her cheeks with a corner of the duvet. Too exhausted to worry any more she pulled up the crisp hotel covers, turned off the unfamiliar lamp and breathed into the black darkness, in and out, in and out, until miraculously, she managed to block everything out and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.