Page 148 of Private Lives

‘Don’t you worry,’ she said, slipping her heels back on. ‘We’ll screw him all right.’

But first she had to find herself a photographer.

46

Anna smiled as the handsome steward handed her another glass of bubbly.

‘Thank you, Martin,’ she said, watching him sway back down the narrow gangway of the Cessna jet.

‘Oi,’ laughed Sam, watching her from his cream leather seat opposite. ‘Stop flirting with the crew.’

‘I’m not sure I’m his type,’ she whispered, as Martin flirted with another handsome male steward at the back of the cabin.

‘You could turn him, I’m sure,’ Sam teased, popping a handful of fat cashew nuts into his mouth.

Anna sat back in her seat and sipped her champagne, wondering whether to pinch herself. Dull solicitors like her just didn’t get to spend the day in a private jet with a Hollywood heart-throb like Sam Charles. But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? The way they had chatted and giggled, flirted and teased; this wasn’t a normal lawyer-client relationship, not by a long chalk, especially as no one from Donovan Pierce even knew she was missing. Helen Pierce would have a fit if she knew she was careering off to India with one of the firm’s most high-profile clients. But Anna couldn’t help it; she was having a fabulous time talking with Sam, hearing his stories of Hollywood, his early life in a working-class part of west London and his struggles to become an actor. Listening to such intimate details in such an enclosed space made her feel as if they were the only two people in the world. She’d tried to tell herself that this was just business, but it wasn’t – it couldn’t be. Not the way he was looking at her. Not the way they were getting on like they’d known each other for years. Or perhaps he was like this with everyone. Wasn?

??t that what celebrities were good at – making you feel like the most important person in the room?

‘So is this thing actually yours?’ she asked, gesturing around the jet’s luxurious cream leather interior with her glass.

‘Not really,’ he smirked. ‘I just say that to impress people like you. I share it on the NetJets owners’ programme.’

‘Only a share?’ She grinned. ‘I’ve been brought here on false pretences. What kind of pauper are you?’

‘Don’t you start.’ He smiled. ‘Jess was always trying to convince me that we needed to buy one outright.’

It was irrational, of course, but Anna was starting to really dislike Jessica Carr. Obviously Sam wasn’t going to paint her in the most flattering light, but she did sound like a greedy, self-centred ogre. Or perhaps Anna was just getting annoyed at the regularity with which Sam mentioned her name, like some recently divorced man on a date. It’s not a date, she reminded herself. But hell, it felt like one.

‘So can you fly?’

He took a sip of his vodka tonic. ‘Not really. Jess got us hisand-hers lessons. She heard that Angelina had her pilot’s licence and she wasn’t going to be beaten. She wanted it to be one of those things we did together.’

‘And did you?’

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘It just made a nice soundbite for a magazine.’

They laughed.

‘What about you?’

Anna shrugged. ‘I can’t fly and I haven’t got a jet. Not even a tiny share in one.’

‘So what do you like doing? Other than work.’

‘Nothing as interesting as the things you get up to.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re a movie star and I’m a solicitor from Richmond.’

He looked at her, a playful smile on his lips.

‘Come on, tell me something interesting about yourself. At least something I don’t know. A boyfriend?’

‘No,’ she said, a touch too quickly. Why was he asking her that? Was he really interested in her private life?

‘What happened to that journalist bloke? The one you didn’t want to talk to?’