She mouthed the words in his accent, smiling to herself as she click-clacked along the pavement to Lawrence’s waiting car.
‘Something’s funny?’ he asked as she climbed in.
‘Oh? No. Just thinking. You look nice.’
He was groomed to within an inch of his life but he’d overdone it on the aftershave, she thought, straining not to cough.
‘Thank you. You’re stunning. A face made for television, Ms Diamond.’
‘I don’t go by Diamond any more.’
‘Sorry. I forgot. It so suits you, though.’
He gave her a long look and she had to fidget with her bag and check her phone before a blush crept forth.
‘So, what kind of food did you say this place specialised in?’
Lawrence, denied a flirtation, reached for the gearstick, clearly resigned to polite chit-chat all the way to the restaurant.
The food was gastropub fare, the restaurant averagely pleasant and stylish, the company a gaggle of town councillors, local paper journalists and small business proprietors. Most of them were visibly and staggeringly starstruck by Jenna, but she caught the owner of a dog grooming parlour telling her friend she ‘looked older than on TV, and those pictures in Glamour were obviously airbrushed’, which made her smile. Comments like these were par for the course in showbusiness; she had long ago learned to shrug them off.
Lawrence was barely able to exchange a word with her, so monopolised was she by curious local politicians wanting to know if Colin Samson, Talent Team’s Mr Nasty, was like that in real life, or if she’d ever partied with the show’s winners.
It wasn’t until the pudding course – which she eschewed in favour of a black coffee – that he was able to direct a little of her attention towards him.
‘Sorry they’re all such nosy bores,’ he muttered. ‘The highlight of their year is usually some dispute about a conservatory roof. You can’t blame them for going a bit crazy, I suppose.’
‘I don’t, at all,’ said Jenna. ‘Honestly, I expect it. I’m used to it. I don’t mind.’
‘You’re very professional, which is wonderful, my dear. But you must long to go out somewhere you won’t be recognised, and besieged by questioners, sometimes.’
‘I used to,’ she said. ‘Especially when it all started. That was insane. From obscure nobody to huge star – Deano, I mean, I was still in the background then. It was all too quick, really. But that seems to be the way in this business. Your career changes on a hair’s breadth. One photo in the right magazine, one line of a song that touches hearts, one off-the-cuff remark at an awards ceremony. It can be anything, really. I mean, my career is built on making it happen, but I still get the mix wrong sometimes. If the mix is wrong, the magic doesn’t work.’
‘How poetic. You deal in magic, Jenna, in dreams.’
He spoke the words with a smoky intensity that made her respond to him despite herself. He was smooth, she caught herself thinking. Too smooth. She shouldn’t be drawn in.
‘Don’t be fooled. There’s cold hard strategising behind that magic and a lot of those dreams fall flat. Remember The Gold Standards? No. Well, there you go. I put a lot of time and effort into them, but I couldn’t make it work in the end.’
‘Everyone fails sometimes. Your successes far outweigh the flops.’
‘Yes, that’s true. But I can’t take all the credit for it. I’m not the talent.’
‘You’re an alchemist. You take base metal and turn it into gold.’
‘Or the Gold Standards.’ She laughed briefly. ‘Lawrence, you have a very exaggerated idea of my skills. A lot of people could do what I do. I’ve just been lucky. And worked bloody hard. Luck and hard work. It’s what most success is down to.’
Lawrence looked away from her at that, taking a sip of his coffee and brushing off a question from a councillor’s wife at his other side.
‘I have an idea,’ he said, turning back to her. ‘I’ve been thinking of it ever since I saw you outside that youth club yesterday. A little project we could do together.’
‘Oh, Lawrence, you know my thoughts on that.’
‘I don’t mean business. This is for the good of the town.’
‘Really?’ She was slightly alarmed at the prospect of getting more intimately bound up with this attractive but slippery-seeming man. ‘I’ve got a lot on my hands with the house renovation and—’
‘It wouldn’t take an enormous amount of input from you, I promise. I’d do all the preparation and publicity, if you like. You just need to lend your name to it and come along on the night.’