Page 45 of Private Lives

‘Just go,’ she said.

‘Can’t we—’

‘MOM!’ she shouted back towards the house.

He held his hands up in surrender. ‘Okay, okay . . .’

He backed away, started walking up the beach, feeling the sand collect in his loafers. He pulled out his phone and called Eli. He could hear laughter and the tinkle of honky-tonk music in the background.

‘Damn, that was quick,’ said Eli. ‘I’m guessing that’s a big fat no, then?’

Sam sighed. ‘Just come and get me,’ he said.

‘Hang tough, cowboy, I’m on my way.’

When Sam turned around, Jess had gone.

12

‘First client?’

Helen popped her head around the door, her immaculate bob framing her smile.

Matt nodded. He had been at the firm two weeks and finally he had brought in some business of his own.

‘Good,’ she said briskly. ‘And I want every nanosecond on that time sheet.’

For a moment, Matthew thought about pointing out that he was a shareholder and as such shouldn’t be treated like a rookie, but he knew it would have little effect. Helen even talked that way to Larry.

‘Oh, and remember, these are celebrities we’re dealing with. The rich are different.’

‘I think I read that somewhere,’ muttered Matthew, but Helen had gone.

Jesus, he thought. It’s like working in a fish tank.

Since he had started at Donovan Pierce, he had felt Helen’s gaze on him every moment of the day, assessing him, criticising him. He’d thought that once he was starting to generate his own client list, she might ease off, but she was still ‘popping in’, dropping little titbits of advice, subtly undermining him. Maybe I’m being paranoid, he thought. But then what was that saying? ‘Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not after you.’ It would certainly suit Helen Pierce if he decided to move on. ‘Helen Pierce Associates’ had quite a ring to it.

He had no more time to dwell on it, however, as his secretary Diane led a neatly dressed man into the room.

‘Mr Beaumont for you, Mr Donovan.’

Matt stood up and shook his hand.

‘Good to meet you,’ he said. ‘Please, have a seat.’

Personally Matt wouldn’t have known Rob Beaumont if he had fallen over him in broad daylight, but a quick look at IMDB had told him that his new client was a film director with a string of critically acclaimed indie pictures to his name. To most teenagers, though, Beaumont was more famous because of his marriage to Kim Collier, the singer in a now-defunct girl band who continued to be popular, as far as Matthew could tell, by appearing in gossip magazines.

‘It’s a right bunfight outside your offices,’ said Rob, settling into his chair. ‘What’s going on?’

Matt glanced towards the window, which looked on to the street. It was six o’clock, yet there was still a pack of photographers on the square.

‘We had a high-profile case last week. The leading players are in hiding and the paparazzi seem to think we’ve got our client stashed away in here somewhere.’

‘You weren’t acting for Sam Charles, were you?’

Matt smiled thinly. He’d only worked in media law a fortnight, but even he could tell the failure of Sam’s injunction was not good news for the firm. There had been some high-handed opinion pieces in the broadsheets about how the overturned injunction represented victory for freedom of the press. Secretly he thought they were right.

‘So you’re a friend of Erica’s?’ he said, as much as a way of distracting the client as opening conversation.