‘Thank you.’ Frank returned the firm handshake with a feeble one of his own. ‘Obviously, we won’t be able to move out of the house now, given the situation. I’m sure you understand. We don’t want Katie getting stressed, do we?’
‘That’s a conversation for another day.’ Jamie adopted the formal tone he usually reserved for work matters. The adrenaline from his run and basting Frank in pizza had dissipated and he wanted away from this idiot and his wind-up patter. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to keep my heart rate up, and chatting to you isn’t cutting it.’
‘Aye, well, I should be getting indoors to the mother of my unborn child.’ Frank stepped past and under the glow of the streetlight, Jamie watched him walk up the path to the cottage, his hemp satchel probably full of spiritual books he used as cover for being a vile person.
Jamie jogged off, but the scene was etched on his mind.Fuck!This man had managed to undermine him yet again. Jamie might be chief operating officer of Scotland’s biggest family owned distillery but right now it felt like someone else was in charge of his life.
When he got home to his modest cottage overlooking Kinshore beach, Jamie microwaved the tepid pizza and some soup and sat in the unheated kitchen eating it. This was the pits. How was he meant to keep his dignity when others kept tearing it from him?
Jamie wanted away. Small-town life worked for him: hethrived on a quiet setting where he had easy access to the bracing Scottish sea for surfing and to the rugged hills for climbing. But right now, Kinshore felt loud, like it was calling him names – ‘loser’ and ‘failure’, for example. He needed to be somewhere tongues weren’t waggling, where the air was pure and unadulterated. Most importantly, he needed to think about work and how to retain his and his father’s dignity by making Butler’s a shining star in the whisky galaxy before Jimmy Butler was gone. Thankfully, he knew the perfect place to do this.
Chapter 2
Alicia
Alicia Jansen’s agent leaned across the desk, her foreboding expression churning Alicia’s stomach like an excavation site. The agent inhaled in a way that could only be the precursor of bad news, and Alicia could see the grim tidings hurtling towards her.
‘Alicia, I’m sorry, but Éclisse are releasing you from your contract.’
‘What? But why?’ Alicia knew the reason but had to hear it to believe it, and to argue against the decision. Not because of the money. It was her reputation on the line here.
‘I’m sorry. There’s no easy way to say this, but your connection with Chad Bradbury has damaged your image, particularly with all the brouhaha between you two recently.’
‘But the whole world knows I’ve split from Chad,’ Alicia argued. ‘We aren’t a couple anymore.’ God knows, she wished they never had been. Her relationship with Hollywood’s golden bad boy had been a journey into a hall of heartache.
‘I realise you’ve parted ways,’ said the agent, ‘but it’s more to do with what happened when you were together. The public arguments: the cheese shop, for example.’
Alicia blinked hard at this accusation. She and Chad had argued in public a few times, but her only role was to tell him to calm down. In the artisan cheese shop in Sherman Oaks he dropped the C-word to a server who told him to go easy on the samples. When the server had removed the plate of cheese, Chad threw a punch at the man. Alicia’s attempts at restraining Chad were fruitless.
‘How has that been twisted round to become me?’ she asked.
‘And the rumours about your behaviour on set,’ the agent added.
‘Rumours. Therefore made up.’
‘I appreciate that, but the main factor was the photos and video,’ the agent explained, her attention diverted to something on her computer.
Alicia swallowed hard. Was this really happening? She had lost her modelling contract because of leaked nudes taken for a private audience of one. And because of a video of her stumbling around, falling into a swimming pool at Villa Celeste after a single glass of wine given to her by Chad, who also filmed the whole thing.
‘This is nuts,’ she said. ‘There was only one route to the internet for those things and everything points to them coming from Chad. If it had been hackers there would have been others at the same time.’
The agent pulled her gaze back to Alicia and spoke in the patronising manner of an elementary school teacher explaining to a student why they’d lost their hall pass.
‘Unfortunately, no matter their journey onto the net, they’ve done damage to your reputation. Éclisse chose youbecause of your pure image. You’re the flaxen-haired model with the stainless reputation. You’re fjords and Norwegian lakes, you’re snowflakes, cashmere and Evian water. Or rather, you were. I hate to say it, but that’s your reputation from when you were an innocent young model, and your association with Chad Bradbury and all that goes with him has tarnished it. Aggression, nudes and drugs don’t fit with Naïve perfume.’
‘I’m twenty-nine years old. Was I ever a good fit for a perfume called Naïve?’ Alicia’s patience was wearing thin. ‘They should have hired a fifteen-year-old if they wanted a purer-than-the-driven-snow image.’
‘Well, Éclisse thought you were. Your image from your Dior days is strong.’
‘Not strong enough to override all this crap.’
‘Drugs are a big deal, Alicia.’
‘I’ve never taken drugs in my life. I seriously have a blackout of most of that night. Who gets a blackout from one glass of wine?’
‘Hmm, perhaps you should speak to your doctor.’
Alicia dug her fingernails into her palms. She would not be drawn into losing her temper. No way would she be dragged down to Chad’s level.
