For His Eyes Only

‘So what are you saying? That the advertising manager of the Chronicle is lying? Or that someone pretended to be you? Come on, Tash, who would do that?’ he asked. ‘What would anyone have to gain?’

She swallowed. Put like that, it did sound crazy.

‘You are right about one thing, though,’ he continued. ‘The phone has been ringing off the hook—’ her sigh of relief came seconds too soon ‘—but not with people desperate to view Hadley Chase. They are all gossip columnists and the editors of property pages wanting a comment.’

She frowned. ‘Already? The magazine has been on the shelves for less than two hours.’

‘You know what they say about bad news.’ He took the ad from her and tossed it onto his desk. ‘In this instance I imagine it was given a head start by someone working at the Chronicle tipping them off.’

‘I suppose. How did Darius Hadley hear about it?’

‘I imagine the estate executors received the same phone calls.’

She shook her head, letting the problem of how this had happened go for the moment and concentrating instead on how to fix it. ‘The one thing I do know is that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I meant what I said to Mr Hadley. Handled right...’

‘For heaven’s sake, Tash, you’ve made both the firm and Mr Hadley into a laughing stock. There is no way to handle this “right”! He’s withdrawn the house from the market and, on top of the considerable expenses we’ve already incurred, we’re not only facing a hefty claim for damages from Hadley but irreparable damage to the Morgan and Black name.’

‘All of which will go away if we find a buyer quickly,’ she insisted, ‘and it’s going to be all over the weekend property pages.’

‘I’m glad you realise the extent of the problem.’

‘No...’ She’d run a Google search when Hadley Chase had been placed in their hands for sale. There was nothing like a little gossip, a bit of scandal to garner a few column inches in one of the weekend property supplements. Unfortunately, despite her speculation on the source of their wealth, the Hadleys had either been incredibly discreet or dull beyond imagining. She’d assumed the latter; if James Hadley had been an entertaining companion, his money would have earned him a lot more than a smallish estate in the country. He’d have been given a title and a place at Charles II’s court.

Darius Hadley had blown that theory right out of the water.

Forget his clothes. With his cavalier curls, his earring, the edge of something dangerous that clung to him like a shadow, he would have been right at home there. Her fingers twitched as she imagined what it would be like to run her fingers through those silky black curls, over his flat abs.

She curled them into her palms, shook off the image—this wasn’t about Darius Hadley; it was about his house.

‘Come on, Miles,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t buy this kind of publicity. The house is in a fabulous location and buyers with this kind of money aren’t going to be put off by problems you’ll find in any property of that age.’ Well, not much. ‘I’ll make some calls, talk to a few people.’ Apparently speaking to a brick wall, she threw up her hands. ‘Damn it, I’ll go down to Hadley Chase and take a broom to the place myself!’

‘You’ll do nothing, talk to no one,’ he snapped.

‘But if I can find a buyer quickly—’

‘Stop! Stop right there.’ Having shocked her into silence, he continued. ‘This is what is going to happen. I’ve booked you into the Fairview Clinic—’

‘The Fairview?’ A clinic famous for taking care of celebrities with drug and drink problems?

‘We’ll issue a statement saying that you’re suffering from stress and will be having a week or two of complete rest under medical supervision.’

‘No.’ Sickness, hospitals—she’d had her fill of them as a child and nothing would induce her to spend a minute in one without a very good reason.

‘The firm’s medical plan will cover it,’ he said, no doubt meaning to reassure her.

‘No, Miles.’

‘While you’re recovering,’ he continued, his voice hardening, ‘you can consider your future.’

‘Consider my future?’ Her future was stepping up to an associate’s office, not being hidden away like some soap star with an alcohol problem until the dust cleared. ‘You’ve got to be kidding, Miles. This has to be a practical joke that’s got out of hand. There’s a juvenile element in the front office that needs a firm—’

‘What I need,’ he said, each word given equal weight, ‘is for you to cooperate.’

He wasn’t listening, she realised. Didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Miles wasn’t interested in how this had happened, only in protecting his firm’s reputation. He needed a scapegoat, a fall guy, and it was her signature on the ad.

That was why he’d summoned her back to the office—to show the sacrifice to Darius Hadley. Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t been impressed. He didn’t want the head of some apparently witless woman who stammered and blushed when he looked at her. He was going for damages so Miles was instituting Plan B—protecting the firm’s reputation by destroying hers.

She was in trouble.

‘I’ve spoken to Peter Black and he’s discussed the situation with our lawyers. We’re all agreed that this is the best solution,’ Miles continued, as if it was a done deal.

‘Already?’

‘There was no time to waste.’

‘Even so... What kind of lawyer would countenance such a lie?’

‘What lie?’ he enquired blandly. ‘Burnout happens to the best of us.’

Burnout? She was barely simmering, but the lawyers—covering all eventualities—probably had the press statement drafted and ready to go. She would be described as a ‘highly valued member of staff’...blah-de-blah-de-blah...who, due to work-related stress, had suffered a ‘regrettable’ breakdown. All carefully calculated to give the impression that she’d been found gibbering into her keyboard.

It would, of course, end with everyone wishing her a speedy return to health. Miles was clearly waiting for her to do the decent thing and take cover in the Fairview so that he could tell them to issue it. The clinic’s reputation for keeping their patients safe from the lenses of the paparazzi, safe from the intrusion of the press, was legendary.

Suddenly she wasn’t arguing with him over the best way to recover the situation, but clinging to the rim of the basin by her fingernails as her career was being flushed down the toilet.

‘This is wrong,’ she protested, well aware that the decision had already been made, that nothing she said would change that. ‘I didn’t do this.’

‘I’m doing my best to handle a public relations nightmare that you’ve created, Natasha.’ His voice was flat, his face devoid of expression. ‘It’s in your own best interests to cooperate.’

‘It’s in yours,’ she retaliated. ‘I’ll be unemployable. Unless, of course, you’re saying that I’ll be welcomed back with open arms after my rest cure? That my promotion to associate, the one you’ve been dangling in front of me for months, is merely on hold until I’ve recovered?’

‘I have to think of the firm. The rest of the staff,’ he said with a heavy sigh created to signal his disappointment with her. ‘Please don’t be difficult about this.’

‘Or what?’ she asked.

‘Tash... Please. Why won’t you admit that you made a mistake? That you’re fallible...sick; everyone—maybe even Mr Hadley—will sympathise with you, with us.’

He was actually admitting it!

‘I didn’t do this,’ she repeated but, even to her own ears, she was beginning to sound like the little girl who, despite the frosting around her mouth, had refused to own up to eating two of the cupcakes her mother had made for a charity coffee morning.

‘I’m sorry, Natasha, but if you refuse to cooperate we’ll have no choice but to dismiss you without notice for bringing the firm into disrepute.’ He took refuge behind his desk before he added, ‘If you force us to do that we will, of course, have no option but to counter-sue you for malicious damage.’

Deep, deep trouble.

‘I’m not sick,’ she replied, doing her best to keep her voice steady, fighting down the scream of outrage that was beginning to build low in her belly. ‘As for the suit for damages, I doubt either you or Mr Hadley would get very far with a jury. While the advertisement may not have been what he signed up for—’ she was being thrown to the wolves, used as a scapegoat for something she hadn’t done and she had nothing to lose ‘—it’s the plain unvarnished truth.’

‘Apart from the woodworm and the stairs,’ he reminded her stonily.