Charlotte Phillips - Man vs. Socialite

‘Since I can’t put my head outside the door without pensioners accosting me.’ She thought back to this morning’s encounter. It seemed age was no barrier to the charm Jack Trent held over the opposite sex.

‘And you’re sure Jack Trent isn’t the real reason you’re up for this?’ Annabel said slyly. ‘I mean, did you see him shirtless in the papers? Utterly jaw-dropping and totally eligible. He’s never photographed with the same woman twice. I can think of people I’d rather kick out of the tent.’

Evie suppressed a flash of interest in scanning the tabloids online. Never the same woman twice? Familiar alarm bells clanged madly in her head. She’d fallen for looks and charm once too often only to find the person they were actually interested in bedding was TV’s Miss Knightsbridge, along with her glossy life. Once they’d reached that base, interest in the real Evie seemed to disappear like smoke, with the possible exception of one D-list pop star she’d dated who’d spun out the charade a bit longer because he wanted a spot on the TV show. She had absolutely no interest in spending time with Jack Trent beyond salvaging her own reputation. What he looked like without a shirt and his marital status had no place in the debate.

‘According to what I’ve read about his survival courses, I’ll be lucky to even get a tent,’ she said.

* * *

The evening before filming started and Jack arrived at the Scottish hotel habitually used by the production crew when making his TV series, and presumably the hotel Evie Staverton-Lynch had referred to in her libellous comment.

He took a small amount of pleasure in the knowledge that it was a two-star basic place, chosen because of its convenient proximity to his outward-bound centre and definitely not for its accommodation standards. No duck-down pillows and absolutely no gourmet menu. Fiercely defensive of their TV star guest, they’d given Evie the room above the kitchens with the view of the bins and an aroma of chip fat should she make the mistake of opening the windows.

The rest of the crew were predictably holed up in the hotel bar as per usual. There was no sign of Miss Knightsbridge anywhere although he’d expected her to descend on the place with a trail of staff behind her. He ordered a soft drink and flipped through the day’s newspapers lying in a pile to one side of the bar, the front pages of nearly all the red tops featuring some gleeful article about the up-and-coming show. The production company would be made up at the media interest.

He turned a page and choked on his mineral water.

Evie Staverton-Lynch’s PR team had clearly been working overtime. A double-page spread featured a colour photo of Evie looking clear-eyed at the camera and wearing a forest-green Jack Trent’s Survival Camp Extreme T-shirt and what looked like nothing else. She had the longest, most delectable legs he’d ever seen. His mouth leached of all moisture and he took an exasperated slug of his drink. He had no wish to find her so hot and it might help if he didn’t keep inadvertently coming across full-colour photos of her in varying delicious states of undress. He forced his eyes to the accompanying article instead. The interview hit just the right tone of contrite. ‘I made a stupid untrue comment in a moment of stress. Taking the survival course is payback for that. I hope it will show how sorry I am and that Jack Trent’s show is the genuine article.’

Since when had denial of all responsibility gone out of the window in favour of doing all she could to restore his good name? He allowed himself a last look at the shapely legs and peach-glossed pout before he closed the paper. Genuine remorse or media spin? He had his doubts. He knew from past experience that people like Evie Staverton-Lynch played the press to their own advantage, changing their attitude at a moment’s notice to suit themselves. Not that he should care one bit either way as long as his reputation came out of this without a smear.

To his enormous surprise, when he checked with Reception for her room number, she hadn’t made any complaint about the sparse facilities. He got the impression from the over-attentive Reception staff that the lack of diva uproar was something of a disappointment.

‘She just arrived on her own, checked in and took herself up to the room. Didn’t even ask for the concierge to take her bags,’ the over-attentive receptionist, who according to the pink badge strategically placed on her low-cut blouse was called Sally, said. ‘Haven’t heard a peep from her since except for a call to Room Service.’

The staff had clearly been expecting her to storm back down as soon as she saw the room and felt cheated at the lack of bratty behaviour. For the first time he found himself wondering just how much of the spoilt socialite impression Evie gave was genuine. Small contradictions at first, lack of diva complaints about the crappy facilities when there was no camera around to witness the tantrum. The fact that she’d travelled up here completely alone. Where were the rich family and glossy friends and hangers-on?

He knew about using a public image to your advantage, despite the fact it made him feel uncomfortable. The media spotlight had done wonders for his charity work and his survival business. When in London he had a shortlist of on-off girlfriends to provide him with the perfect date when he needed to attend anything public. Models or starlets who shared the same showbusiness agent as him and were more than happy with the exposure of being seen out with him at charity functions or parties. He kept things casual at all costs. Enjoy the moment then move on; that was the way he liked it.

The tabloid press gleefully wrote about his glamorous girlfriends and his daredevil outdoor exploits and largely ignored his family background. And as a result the public at large had no clue about his youth, his past failures or about the selfish way he’d let his sister down. That was the way he intended to keep it.

Evie Staverton-Lynch’s success was based entirely on manipulation of the media. That didn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t more to her than the papers gave away.

The hotel lift wasn’t working so he took the stairs.

* * *

Expecting Room Service with what was bound to be a substandard lasagne, Evie jumped a little in surprise when she opened the door to see Jack Trent leaning laconically against the door jamb.

‘What, no entourage?’ he said. The green eyes held a hint of amusement, which crinkled them at the corners and made her stomach give an extremely ill-judged flutter. For Pete’s sake, she was not attracted to a man who was going to take pleasure in making her crawl through mud this time tomorrow.

She kept hold of the door.

‘Excuse me?’ she said.

‘Don’t people like you have a gang of hangers-on that accompany you everywhere? You know, for hair and make-up and general love-ins.’

Did he have any idea of the ludicrousness of that comment? None of her friends were prepared to desert their luxury London lives for somewhere as devoid of consumer durables as this in order to offer her some support. In fact, there’d been a marked drop in contact from her social circle in these last few days. Supportive friendship apparently didn’t hold much weight in the face of disassociating yourself from the bad-mouthing Jack Trent media scandal. On her own, therefore, in the middle of nowhere, she’d spent the past hour flicking through the laminated ‘Hotel Information’ brochure, working out that with no satellite TV the choice of movie that evening was reduced to one—a sci-fi blood-fest, just bloody great—and wondering if she could bear the alternative: watching something else on the tiny screen of her phone via the somewhat erratic Wi-Fi.