Despite the warmth filling her cheeks, Violet resisted the urge to say, You think I’m beautiful?
He’d just think she was fishing for compliments, anyway.
‘As it happens, I’ll have you know that floristry is more popular than ever.’ She had no idea if that were actually true, but it sounded good. ‘Young women across the country are taking courses in flower arranging.’ Probably.
‘Did you?’ Tom asked. ‘Take a course, I mean?’
‘Not...exactly.’ Damn. There went the legitimacy of her words.
‘So how on earth did you get to be head of the church flower committee? I’ve watched enough rural British murder mysteries to know that kind of job is usually enough to kill over.’
‘We live in Buckinghamshire, not Midsomer,’ Violet pointed out. ‘We haven’t had a murder in the village in almost seventy years.’
‘Still, I bet there was a queue of blue-haired ladies waiting to take over. Weren’t they a tad annoyed when you swanned in and stole it from right under their noses?’
Well, yes, of course they had been. But Tom made it sound as if she’d just rocked up and demanded she be given the job because of who her parents were, just like some people she’d known back in the day had demanded access to exclusive nightclubs. And usually been let in, too.
‘I’d been trained up by the last head of the committee for five years,’ Violet said, trying not to notice the lump that still formed in her throat when she thought about Kathleen. ‘When she got sick, she insisted that I take over. She dictated arrangements to me over the phone, made me bring her photos to show her I was doing it right. When she died...I was voted in the day after the funeral.’ Kathleen had actually tried to leave her the position in her will, but of course it hadn’t been hers to give. So there had to be a ballot of the whole committee—which she’d won by just one vote.
Still, Violet hoped she’d won over the doubters over the last few years. God knew, she’d achieved very little else. Until now. It might be a bit of a jump from flower arranging to concert arranging but, come hell or high water, she’d prove herself here just like she had on the committee.
‘But you obviously wanted it.’ Tom tilted his head to one side as he studied her. It made Violet want to flinch, so she worked really hard at keeping her muscles still instead. He wanted her to flinch, she was sure of it. And she wasn’t giving Tom Buckley anything he wanted.
‘It meant a lot to Kathleen that I take it on,’ she said evenly. ‘And I get a lot of pleasure from working with flowers.’
He nodded absently, as if taking everything she said as accepted truth. But then he fixed her with his clear green eyes and said, ‘So, tell me. How did the daughter of rock royalty go from starring in her very own porno to arranging the Easter flowers?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
VIOLET WENT VERY still for a moment, the fingers clutching her file almost white from tension. Tom sat back and waited. He knew this part. In any usual interview, this was the bit where the subject tried to recall all the advice from the PR guru on how to spin their misdeeds in the best possible light.
And Miss Violet Huntingdon-Cross had clearly had some ambitious PR advice, probably from her twin sister, actually. Keep your head down, take on some charity work, or work in the community. Rehabilitate your character until everyone forgets the part about how they saw you naked on the internet, mid pretty boring sex.
Was this why Rick had pushed for him to help her out with the Benefit Concert? Tom had no doubt that Rick’s first concern was publicity for the band, but maybe the relaunch of his eldest daughter as an upstanding member of society was a nice side benefit. Hell, maybe that was why he was doing all this now. With two daughters married, he could happily portray them as settled down and mature—and Violet could ride in on their coat-tails.
Except Tom had seen her lose it in the middle of an airport café. He’d glimpsed the real passionate, wild Violet—and he really wasn’t buying the Sunday school teacher act.
‘I thought we agreed that this wasn’t the time for an interview,’ Violet said, her voice stiff and prim.
Tom shrugged. ‘It’s not. I’m not recording anything. Just asking an idle question.’
‘Sure.’ Violet’s mouth twisted up into a bitter smile. ‘I bet we’re off the record and everything, right? No, thanks. I know how that works.’
‘If I say something is off the record, I mean it.’ Tom sat up straighter, bristling a little at the implication. ‘Your dad brought me here because he knows my reputation as a fair, honest, accurate reporter. I’m not trying to trick you into anything here, Violet.’
He’d worked too hard at building up that reputation—after the story that made his name—to risk it now, over one blonde wild child. If his mother were still alive, even she’d have to admit that he’d turned it around. He was respectable now, dammit.
Violet met his gaze, her blue eyes wide and vulnerable. She’d probably practised that look in the mirror, too. ‘Okay, then,’ she said finally, giving him a small nod.
But she didn’t answer his question. Instead, she turned back to the file in her hand, giving it her full attention as a little crease started to form between her eyebrows. Tom wanted to ask her what she was reading—until he realised there was a much more pressing question to be answered.
‘What did you mean, when you said you “know how that works”?’
Violet shrugged, not looking up. ‘You know. Off the record is only valid until someone says something worth breaking the rules for.’
‘That’s not true.’ The defence of his profession was automatic—even as he admitted to himself that for some reporters it was entirely true. The sort of reporter who would hack voicemails or intercept emails didn’t care very much about a verbal agreement about ‘the record’. Hell, it was barely more than a social convention anyway, a nicety to make interview subjects feel more comfortable.
But he’d stuck by that convention for his entire career, bar one story. And he didn’t intend to ever break it again.
‘Really?’ Violet raised her pale brows at him in disbelief. ‘You really believe that all reporters honour the privacy of things said off the record?’ She shook her head without waiting for an answer. ‘The only way to be safe is to assume that you’re on the record at all times. Whatever anyone says.’ The way she said it, the conviction she gave the words...this wasn’t just some advice from a media expert. This was the mantra Violet lived her life by—or at least it was now.
‘When talking to reporters?’ Tom asked, wanting her to admit to what he suspected. ?
?Or when talking to anybody?’
Her gaze slipped away from his. ‘Depends on who you’re talking to. And whether you trust them not to sell your story to the papers.’
‘And who do you trust that much?’ Tom had an inkling it would be a very short list.
‘Who do you?’ Violet threw his own question back at him, and he blinked in surprise.
‘Trust me, no one is interested in any story about me.’ Just the idea of it made him laugh. He was a reporter, always behind the scenes, shedding light on other people’s lives. No one ever needed to examine his—and he really didn’t want them to.
‘Just suppose they were. Hypothetically.’ Violet leant forward and, even with the desk between them, her piercing stare made her feel uncomfortably close. ‘Imagine that something happened in your life—you won the lottery, or wrote the next Harry Potter, or married a celebrity, whatever. Suddenly everyone in the world wants to know your secrets. Who would you still tell the truth to?’
No one. The thought felt empty and hollow even as it echoed through his brain. There was no one he trusted with that much of him. No one he’d tell about his hopes and dreams—and no one he’d trust with his failures or regrets.
Oh, he had friends, plenty of them. Enough in every country that he always had someone he could meet for dinner, or go out for drinks with. And he’d had girlfriends, too—also plenty. The fact he didn’t have one right now made absolutely no difference to the trusted person question. He hadn’t told any of the previous ones any more than he thought they needed to know. His mother had probably been the last person he’d trusted that way, and she was a long time gone. Not to mention the fact that even telling her the truth hadn’t ended so well.
He wasn’t the story. He never was. That was kind of the point of being a reporter.
‘Never happen,’ he said as breezily as he could. ‘My utter unremarkableness is one of the main reasons I’ve managed to build up a successful career as a music journalist. So, go on, your turn. Who do you trust that much? Rose, I imagine. And Daisy and your parents. Who else?’