Page 169 of Private Lives

‘I knew it!’ cried Cath. ‘It’s a bloke, isn’t it? You sly little minx. Have you been on Match.com like we told you?’

Anna shook her head, wishing her cheeks didn’t feel so hot.

‘It’s just Sam,’ she said, quickly slipping her BlackBerry back into her bag.

‘Sam who?’

‘Sam Charles.’

Cath looked at her incredulously.

‘Just Sam Charles. I thought he fired you?’

‘He did. But he came round to apologise. We’re working on something together.’

‘He came round to your house? OMG. You’ve slept with him, haven’t you? I don’t believe it, you dirty old sod. I knew there was something different about you today. It’s that “just been shagged” glow.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ said Anna, steering Cath to a quieter alcove. ‘I don’t want to get fired again.’

Cath’s mouth was still hanging open.

‘My best friend has shagged a Hollywood star. This is historic.’

‘It was only one time,’ she said. Four times in one night, she thought dreamily, but now was not the time to go into that.

‘Only once? I swear if it happened to me I would think my work on earth was done now.’

It felt good to finally tell someone about it. After their time on the longboat, she’d been resigned to the fact that it had been a one-night stand brought on by the romantic setting. The whole experience had had a decidedly holiday romance feel to it. They were drunk, they were in India, they’d been caught up in the drama. It had been wonderful, and he’d been funny and attentive on the flight home, but she wasn’t kidding herself that she could expect anything else. He was Sam Charles, for goodness’ sake – and anyway, after dropping her home, he’d flown straight back to LA. Who knew what bimbos were waiting for him in his swanky Hollywood Hills shag pad? But Sam had surprised her. He had called her. Part of her had felt happy and hopeful that this was the start of something. The other part felt as if she was about to step on to a rollercoaster, and wasn’t sure if she was ready for the ride.

‘If you’re going to get all soppy over Casanova, I’m going to have a crack at a footballer.’

Anna put her hand on her frien

d’s arm.

‘There he is,’ she said.

‘Who? Sam Charles?’

‘No, Johnny Maxwell.’

He was standing in a group of model-type girls. In his mid sixties, wearing a loud purple and green checked three-piece suit, with his shoulder-length white hair swept back, he looked like a rock star gone to seed. Every now and then he would use the silver camera hanging around his neck to snap a shot of one of these beautiful women.

‘Is that the guy you need to speak to?’

‘I need to chat him up, actually,’ said Anna.

‘So you and Sam have an open relationship, then?’ She looked over at Maxwell. ‘Anna, he’s about eighty.’

‘Sixty-four, I believe.’ She’d spent an hour Googling him that afternoon. Whilst Johnny Maxwell had a decidedly sleazy reputation as a party animal, his lineage was pure. The son of a wealthy minor aristocrat, he was an Old Etonian who had dropped out of Oxford to join the Carnaby Street scene. Inspired by Bailey and Donovan, he’d become a photographer, primarily as a way to get girls. Since then, he had never really gone away, becoming a fixture on whatever was the most happening scene: Studio 54, eighties LA, Britpop London, finding his niche somewhere between portrait photographer and society party planner.

‘What do you want to chat him up for?’ asked Cath, wrinkling her nose.

‘I need him to invite me to something.’

‘What? A Saga holiday?’

‘Just run with me on this one, okay?’ said Anna seriously. ‘Think of it as role play. We’re going over to speak to him, and when we do, we’re going to have to pretend to be someone else.’