Virgin's Sweet Rebellion

She simply stared, utterly discomfited by his admission. He was staying in the broom cupboard? And he hadn’t even been going to mention it until she’d pressed. Now she really did feel self-important and high maintenance and all the rest of it, except wannabe, of course ‘Thank you,’ she said yet again, lamely, and Ben just stared at her with that inscrutable expression, his eyes reminding her of a tiger or a panther or some other wild and dangerous animal. Okay, enough with the fanciful thoughts. He was waiting, she realised, for her to go. And so she did, hightailing it out of his office with an unsettling mixture of relief and disappointment.

An hour later Olivia had managed, mostly, to put the whole episode with Ben Chatsfield out of her mind as she answered questions about the upcoming drama that was going to be her ticket to the A-list. She laughed, she chatted, she even winked once. All of it a performance, and one that she was doing remarkably well, if she did say so herself.

Then, just after she’d told a witty joke and let out a sparkling laugh, a reporter came back with, ‘Would you care to comment on your relationship with Benjamin Chatsfield?’

What the what?

The expression of laughing ease dropped from Olivia’s face like the mask it was as she stared at the woman from the entertainment website with whom she’d got on very well until this moment.

Her relationship with Benjamin Chatsfield? How on earth had the woman come up with that one? After an endless moment her brain finally stuttered into gear. ‘I don’t care to comment at this time,’ she said crisply. And wasn’t that an understatement. She didn’t have a relationship with Ben Chatsfield. How did this woman even know she’d spoken to Ben Chatsfield?

‘Not even on this photo?’ the woman asked with a smile that was starting to look smug. Olivia looked down at the newspaper she’d laid on the table, opened to a two-page spread of...

Oh, dear heaven.

How had someone seen them? And how had they looked so...intimate? Some paparazzi had captured them at just the right—or wrong—moment, with Ben’s hands on her shoulders, his face thrust close to hers, looking for all the world as if he were going to kiss her when in fact he’d been about to yell at her. Again.

And there were other photos...one of them sitting by the edge of the pool, Ben’s arm around her shoulders. She’d been recovering from a coughing fit but it looked...it looked as if they were cuddling.

And then the headline: Celebrity Chef Ben Chatsfield Gets Up Close and Personal with Starlet.

Starlet? They didn’t even know her name! She swallowed her pique and glanced back up at the smirking woman.

‘Like I said, no comment.’

Every interview she’d had scheduled that day was the same. Each reporter asked a few hurried questions about the upcoming film or her career, and then went for what they were really interested in.

Her relationship with celebrity chef Ben Chatsfield. Starlet she might be, but she’d been recognised.

Olivia kept up the ‘no comment’ line for five interviews, enduring smirks, chuckles and some pretty blatant innuendo. By late afternoon, when a jowly man from a tabloid her agent had insisted she grant an interview to asked her what she thought Ben Chatsfield saw in her, an insulting question if she’d ever heard one, she replied frostily, ‘The truth is Ben Chatsfield and I have been seeing each other since The Chatsfield tried to take over The Harrington.’ She gave him a glittering smile. ‘It’s a bit like Romeo and Juliet, don’t you think?’

And without waiting for a response, she stalked out of the room.

Her agent, Melissa, followed her with a click of stiletto heels. ‘Now that will get them talking,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘I didn’t know you were seeing Ben Chatsfield. That’s great press.’

Olivia kept her back to Melissa, unsure of the expression that would be on her face. Horror, probably. Or maybe hysteria. ‘I’m not,’ she said after a moment, her voice toneless.

‘What was that?’

‘I’m not seeing him!’ She whirled around, gave her agent what she hoped was an insouciant look. Come on, Olivia, play the devil-may-care ingénue. It’s just another role. ‘I just said that because the man was so odious.’

‘Oh.’ Melissa frowned, and Olivia let out a careless little laugh.

‘What? It’s just Hollywood gossip. Tomorrow they’ll move on to something else.’

‘Yes, but...’ Melissa was still frowning, and everything in Olivia prickled with annoyance—as well as a little alarm. She didn’t like seeing her agent look so...disapproving.

‘It’s not a big deal,’ she said, still trying for airy.

‘You just confirmed a relationship,’ Melissa pointed out. ‘So it’s not just gossip or rumour, Olivia. It’s a fact, confirmed by a primary source.’

‘Oh. Well.’ Her mind raced even as her face flushed. Why had she said such a stupid thing? She’d just been so fed up, being treated like Ben Chatsfield’s eye candy all day instead of an actress in her own right. No one had been interested in her upcoming film, just who they thought Ben Chatsfield was seeing. ‘I could explain,’ she suggested to Melissa. ‘Tell them I just said it because that reporter was so annoying...’ She trailed off as Melissa shook her head.

‘That would just make you look like an idiot. An unstable idiot who lies in public.’

Which basically meant she was an unstable idiot who lied in public. Ben Chatsfield’s mocking question echoed through her mind.

Do you always leap before you look?

Apparently so. Which was surprising, because she’d never thought of herself as impetuous. She’d planned her acting career with the resolute focus of a military general. Yet in the space of twenty-four hours she’d been acting like a crazed person. She was just so stressed. Isabelle was on her case about wanting to buy her shares in the hotel, and while Olivia had no real ties to the hotel, she still felt reluctant to step away from her family’s business so completely. Her real focus, though, was on securing this film role which could make—or break—her career. She had not, Olivia acknowledged, been at her best.

No wonder Ben thought so little of her. And he was going to think even less of her when he heard about this latest mishap. Which he most certainly would, since she’d just said it to a voracious reporter.

This was bad.

‘I screwed up, clearly,’ she told Melissa. Honesty was the best policy, right? ‘What can I do to make it better?’

‘I’m not sure. What is your relationship with Ben Chatsfield, Olivia?’

‘I told you, I don’t have one...’

‘Then why were the two of you in a clinch in The Chatsfield’s pool?’

‘It was an accident.’

‘An accident?’

Olivia sighed. ‘I didn’t look before I leaped,’ she said. ‘Literally.’

At least Melissa gave a small smile when Olivia explained just how she and Ben had ended up tangled together in the deep end. But then she sighed and frowned again.

‘I think the best thing, for now anyway, is to go along with the ruse.’

‘The ruse?’

‘That you’re seeing Ben Chatsfield. Assuming you can get him to agree, of course.’

‘Oh. Uh. Sure.’ Not.

‘At least until the Berlinale is over and we have this film role confirmed. After that you can just say the two of you broke up.’

‘Right.’ Ben was so not going to be on board with this. Olivia pictured the look of disbelief on his face when she explained what she wanted—needed—him to do. Not just disbelief, but disdain. Derision. All those nasty D words.

‘So you guys are friends, right?’ Melissa asked. ‘He’ll agree to play along for a little while?’

Olivia gave her agent a breezy smile. She wasn’t an actress for nothing. ‘Oh, sure,’ she said, and held up two crossed fingers. ‘We’re like that. Not a problem at all.’

Uh-huh.