A Life Less Lonely (27 page)

Carefully
shutting the door behind her, Allegra sat on the sofa and listened to the sounds of the city at night, thinking about Jackson Flye’s words. Was she ready for love? She didn’t know, but it would be nice to be in love again. To have someone who was in love with her. She couldn’t even remember what it was like.

Slowly,
she got up, tidied the room, washed out the wine glasses, switched off the lights and got ready for bed. Pausing at the doorway of her own room, she turned and went instead into the children’s empty bedroom, climbed into Daisy’s bed and, breathing in the beautiful baby smell of her youngest daughter on the pillow, closed her eyes and missed her children.

Chapter Two

LIZ WAS SEETHING. What was she going to do now? The seminar was in two days’ time, how on Earth could she find a replacement actor in time?

‘Clive, look, you’ve really screwed me around,’ she said through gritted teeth, as Clive squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. ‘God, I need a drink.’ She pulled a tiny silver hipflask out of her top drawer and took a swig.

‘The bottom line is that I don’t know who else to call,’ she told him. ‘Now that you’ve buggered up my schedule with this other project you’d forgotten you’d committed to, you’ve got to find someone to take your place. I can’t go up there in front of the top 30 senior executives of Buckland Corporation and no actor to oversee the role-play workshops. Allegra’s going to have her hands full running the whole event anyway; I can’t ask her to take the workshops on well. Anyway, it needs to be a bloke. These CEOs and vice-presidents find it hard enough to take anyone without a dick seriously in a business sense; stick a woman up there for role-play games and we might as well re-enact The World of Suzie Wong.’

She
slammed her hipflask back into her drawer and buzzed her PA, Rose. ‘Give Mr Mayhew access to the conference room, please. He’ll need a phone, a large pot of extra-strong coffee and a pair of stainless steel underpants, because if he doesn’t find me a replacement actor by the end of business today, I’m going to neuter him.’

Clive
got to his feet. He wisely guessed that asking Liz to arrange for a sandwich as well as the coffee would be a bad move, and went into the spacious conference room at Apex PR to start calling every bloke with a pulse that he could think of. At this point, he’d take the first person to say yes, and so would Liz.

Back
in her office, Liz stalked the length of the room, back and forth, back and forth. What if Clive couldn’t find anyone? The upcoming seminar was not the biggest event she’d tackled, but it was certainly the most lucrative. In addition to its primary role as a public relations specialist, Apex had quietly branched out into corporate training seminars aimed at senior executives from Western companies, looking to do business in Asia.

So
far, all her clients had been American and, Liz thought, God knows they needed all the help they could get in terms of accommodating local Asian practices, cultures and sensibilities. Some of the guys who walked into the training sessions were unbelievable; she had honestly never thought such bloated, egotistical jerks existed outside the worst, most clichéd movies Hollywood could produce.

But
time and again, they proved her wrong. Yet, thanks to her no-nonsense approach, her refusal to take any of the misogynistic shit they handed her and, most of all, because her methods garnered solid results, Apex’s reputation in the field grew. Allegra was the perfect foil to Liz; she soothed and smoothed over any ruffled feathers, somehow convinced their rich and powerful clients through flattery and gentle flirting that yes, of course they were supermen, but here in Asia, things worked differently. And they wanted to make money, didn’t they? So why not relax and concentrate, she cooed, placing her hand on their shoulders and leading them back to their seats.

‘Allegra?’ Liz had called her friend. ‘That giant fool Clive has really screwed us this time. Turns out he forgot he’d signed a contract for another project before he agreed to do the Buckland event with us, so now we have no one to oversee the role-play workshops. What are we going to do?’

‘For a start, take me off the bloody speakerphone, you know I hate it,’ Allegra said, trying not to panic. ‘And stop shouting at me. It’s not my fault.’

‘I know it’s not your fault, but if I don’t shout at someone now I’m going to go in there and rip his stupid head off his stupid shoulders,’ Liz yelled. ‘Look, if this isn’t fixed within the next three hours, we’re going to have to call Buckland and try to postpone the seminar.’

Allegra’s
heart sank. Postponing on a client as powerful and influential as Buckland was as good as cancelling. Buckland had arranged for its top executives to fly in to Hong Kong from all over the region. And if the event was called off, Apex’s reputation would be ruined.

‘Look, I’m sorry, I just need to blow off some steam. Clive’s trying to find a replacement, but if he can’t, and we do have to cancel, don’t worry — you’ll still get your fee, I’ll make sure of that,’ Liz said. She knew Allegra was living virtually from hand to mouth these days. She’d turned down offers of fulltime work, insisting she was managing, that she couldn’t commit to a permanent position because she wanted to be available for her kids whenever they needed her.

‘Don’t be daft. If the project is canned, Apex doesn’t get paid. So you can’t pay me,’ Allegra said, stiffly. ‘I’ll cope, maybe see if I can do a couple of extra shifts at the magazine or something. Anyway, we’ve still got a few hours before we need to commiserate; maybe Clive will surprise us both and find someone to do the job.’

In
the background, Allegra heard a muffled thump as Clive burst into Liz’s office with a whoop. Her heart leapt; he’d done it, she thought. Sure enough, Clive’s fifteenth call had been the charm. Neither Liz nor Allegra had ever heard of the actor he’d lined up in his stead, Jack something-or-other. Clive fervently assured them that Jack would be great, that he’d eagerly accepted the offer, and had promised to be in Liz’s office first thing in the morning for a briefing.

‘Knowing our luck, he’s only available because no one else will give him a job because he’s totally unemployable,’ Liz said to Allegra, glaring at Clive as she spoke into the phone. ‘And this means you’re going to have to be here at 8am tomorrow. Buggered if I’m going to face this loser on my own, because if he is even half as useless as Clive, I’m going to nut him.’

She
hung up and turned to face Clive. ‘You just bought yourself a stay of execution,’ she told him. ‘But if this Jack person lets me down in any way at all, I will feed your testicles and his through a sieve to my dog. Clear?’

‘Clear,’ said Clive. He had no doubt that Liz would carry out her threat. She was like the Incredible Hulk. You should never make her angry.