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Alex gave a light, tinkling laugh. ‘That remains to be seen. And I’m not selling anything.’

‘The way I remember it, you’realwaysselling something,’ Leigh said with a raised eyebrow.

Alex was momentarily lost for words. She wasn’t used to that.

‘Look,no one’sgoing in, alright?’ Brett said.

Leigh gave Brett a formal smile. ‘Look, I was just on the phone to a friend who got through to Mrs Archer. She should be receptive to me now,’ she said.

Alex’s head whipped to Leigh. ‘What?’

‘Yeah. I guess it pays to be a cog in the machine sometimes. It means you have access to other cogs who know Helen Archer,’ Leigh explained smugly.

Alex was pissed. Though she was a hell of a saleswoman, Leigh had a point. Every connection Alex had, she’d personally forged. But Leigh? She knew people who knew people. You couldn’t beat that.

Brett looked cynical but went into his booth and made a call. He poked his head back out. ‘Miss Calloway? If you want to drive through, I’ll open the gates.’

Leigh gave Alex a victorious smile and headed to her car. Alex had no choice but to do the same, walking back to her BMW. The heavy gates parted slowly, and Leigh trundled in.

Alex got her car started, intending to turn the beast around and bugger off from whence she came. She could regroup, strategise, come back stronger.

But as she watched Leigh pushing up the driveway and noted those slow, heavy gates grinding back to position at a snail’s pace, Alex lost her marbles. She put her foot down and shot through the gap after Leigh.

Even as it was happening, Alex knew it was stupid. She could only blame her awful competitive streak for the madness. Whichalsocaused her to zip right around a shocked Leigh. Alex found herself laughing as she did it.

She arrived at the big house a few seconds later and climbed out. ‘What the hell am I doing?’ she muttered to herself.

Twelve

Leigh was stunned. What in the hell was Alex doing? She was seriously just gonna break and enter?! But also, she was winning the race? Leigh wasn’t doing this. She was only putting her foot down a bit because she was in third gear anyway.

She pulled up at the manor house and was unshocked to see its hugeness. Helen Archer had been big in the eighties, the posh leading woman of choice. She’d been rescued from disaster by just about every male action star of the time. She’d begged Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone,andJack Nicholson to find her daughter. She’d also done a lot of Merchant Ivory films, stuffed into a bonnet on many an occasion, so she had the cachet of a proper actor. But this place looked like it was built on the back of the bang-bang kiss-kiss movie money.

Alex’s BMW was parked up on the gravel, and she was already out of the car. The doors of the house were opening, and she was dashing to meet the person behind them. Even though Leigh had an appointment that she’d had to call her old boss to get, she still felt like she was behind. She found herself running to chase Alex. She felt fucking ridiculous as she did it, but she couldn’t stop.

The door opened, and a young guy in a suit, sporting a very groomed moustache, answered just as Leigh and Alex reached the door together. He looked back and forth between them, slightly thrown. ‘Leigh Calloway?’

‘That’s me,’ Leigh said, throwing Alex an irritated look.

Mr Moustache looked to Alex. ‘And this is…’

Alex threw a confident smile on her face. ‘I’m here to see Mrs Archer, too. I’ve been sent by Isabelle Kane.’

‘But she doesn’t have an appointment,’ Leigh was quick to point out.

Alex’s smile widened. ‘I think if I could just get a second with her…’

‘You don’t have an appointment?’ the young man sniffed.

‘Hugo, what on earth is all this noise?’ someone said and then she was standing next to the young guy—Helen Archer.

Leigh was briefly taken aback at seeing the woman that her grandad had once called, ‘High-class arse.’ For some reason, Leigh had expected her to have turned into your average little old woman, but not a bit of it. She was as sharp and imposing as ever, almost six feet of no-nonsense beauty.

Once she’d regained herself, she managed to say, ‘Hi, I’m Leigh. I think you spoke to Jack Allen about me just now.’

‘OK, and who are you?’ she said, turning to Alex.

‘I’m Alex Walker. I work for Isabelle.’