Charlotte Phillips – Man vs. Socialite (страница 2)

Heaven forbid that he might miss an opportunity to mention her upbringing, the implication ever-present that she should be grateful she still had one, never mind that it had been devoid of anything really except for his money and use of his name. Love and affection had been laughed out of the room from the moment her mother died, no matter how hard she tried to earn them. Her membership of the family had only ever been an honorary one, extended to her for the sake of her mother’s feelings when she was alive and her mother’s memory now she was dead.

‘Thank goodness your mother isn’t here to see it,’ he added.

That last comment hit her low in the stomach and took her breath away even when she watched it back, knowing it was coming, because perhaps the most delicious part of designing her jewellery line had been imagining the glee her mother might have felt about it. Her mum had loved costume jewellery, letting six-year-old Evie play dress-up with her box of sparkly cocktail rings and beads. The memory was a treasured one, a sparkling one among many, many later memories that were grey with obedience, routine and loneliness.

And that more than anything had triggered the thundering, ill-judged lashing-out that followed.

Now, in the cold light of a few days later, Evie’s insides churned in anticipatory mortification at what came next on the tape.

Her own voice kicked in on the video, and did she really sound that pinched and snobby? Another surge of hot shame climbed her neck to burn in her face.

‘Jack Trent’s ex-army, isn’t he?’ she heard herself snap. ‘So it comes as no surprise that you’d prefer watching his show to mine.’

She’d had her fill of military-style closing of ranks growing up. After her mother had gone she simply hadn’t possessed enough female clout by herself to counteract the cold and regimented male-dominated life that was left. The new revelation that apparently a background in the armed forces ranked above his regard for her raised her temper to even dizzier heights.

‘Trent’s show is a documentary,’ her father snapped. ‘Completely different. It has substance. Five minutes of your fly-on-the-wall was enough. It’s nothing but vacuous rubbish. You’ve turned the family into a laughing stock.’

The family. Not our family. Figure of speech? Or dead giveaway about how he regarded her? She seemed to see her exclusion in his every nuance these days. The difference between her and her brother Will that had never mattered when her mother was there to provide the link that held them together. Half-brother, she corrected now in her mind. She was the cuckoo in the nest since her mother had gone, no one left any more to justify her place there. The sadness of that thought had brought a sudden burst of irrational jealous hostility towards Jack Trent and his stupid survival skills. She gathered all the hurt and misery and frustration together and verbalised it, and unfortunately Jack Trent, whom she’d never met, happened to be inadvertently in the firing line.

‘Substance?’ she snarled. ‘I can’t believe you buy into all that. Do you really think he’s sleeping under the stars eating barbecued rat? When the camera switches off he’ll be off to the nearest luxury hotel to sleep on duck-down pillows and scoff à la carte.’

An audible sucking in of breath from Chester brought her right back to the horrible present.

‘You know, it doesn’t matter how many times I hear that, it doesn’t lose its shock value,’ he breathed, tapping the tablet to pause the video. A grainy freeze-frame of her own miserable and indignant expression filled the screen. Her head had started to ache.

‘What were you thinking? You’ve probably ruined your own career in a couple of sentences and you’ve dragged Jack Trent down with you. The production company are apoplectic.’

‘It was a private opinion,’ she protested, the injustice of the whole thing spiking her anger. In actual fact it hadn’t even been an opinion, it had been a lashing-out, no time to be held back by a little thing like the fact it wasn’t true. ‘Jack Trent’s show just happened to be the one my father mentioned he watched instead of mine. It was a knee-jerk reaction, not meant for public viewing.’

‘What you failed to consider is that the production company who make Miss Knightsbridge also make Jack Trent’s Survival Camp Extreme. The tabloids are implying that means it isn’t an off-the-cuff bitchy comment, that you must have some insider information.’ Chester leaned in. ‘That Jack Trent really is eating hotel food instead of living off nature’s bounty.’

Not one to let up for a moment, he swiped the screen a couple of times and brought up the social network group page she’d seen earlier.

‘Jack Trent’s fan base are extremely loyal,’ he said. ‘“Get evil Evie off our TV screens,”’ he read aloud. ‘Now sixteen thousand likes and counting—’

Unlike her fans. She had yet to read as much as a single supportive comment. A spike of miserable envy jabbed her in the stomach at the depth of public affection for Jack Trent.

She put her head in her hands and stared down at the glass table top in despair.

‘Please, I don’t want to hear any more.’

Now she wished she’d bitten her tongue before she’d spoken, but her subconscious mind had simply taken over in that moment of stress. Jack Trent was an ex-soldier, bound to be another cold and detached military man. He was basically her father minus thirty or so years, and so he happened to be a handy by-proxy target.

Because even after all these years of indifference at best and criticism at worst, Evie still couldn’t bring herself to diss her father. Not to his face anyway.

Unfortunately she hadn’t reckoned for a moment on having her comments overheard by the world at large. And apparently an immediate apology via social media just didn’t cut the mustard when an inflammatory comment went viral.

‘In the public consciousness right now you are pond life, sweetie.’ Chester pointed at her with his pen. ‘And worse than that, you’re pond life with money. Public support has been based around fascination with your ditsy-but-sweet image, your how-the-other-half-live fashion sense and your socialite mates. That kind of thing doesn’t hold much water now you’ve bad-mouthed a national treasure. They think they’ve seen the real you, and, honey, it ain’t pretty.’

He tapped the screen again and shoved it in front of Evie’s face. She batted the tablet aside, but unfortunately not before she’d seen the comment at the top of the list.

@evieITgirl lives in luxury. @SurvivalJackT fought for his country #wasteofspace

She clapped her hands over her eyes and pressed her palms against her eyelids. On the opposite side of the table criticism carried on. Unfortunately she didn’t have enough hands to cover her ears too.

* * *

Jack Trent gritted his teeth and climbed out of the taxi at the glossy offices of Purple Productions, the usual sense of resignation kicking in at time required to be spent schmoozing in the city, which he considered to be time completely wasted. He wondered if he would ever in his life get the train into London without then counting the hours until he could get the train back out again.

Back in the wilderness at the outward-bound centre he owned in the Scottish Highlands, fine-tuning preparations were unexpectedly on hold for his latest venture, one which for the first time meant more than just a business opportunity based on his military skills. This new initiative was close to his heart. He had more invested in it than just time and money. The sudden requirement to leave and come to talk to suits would have had his mood on a knife edge at the best of times, let alone when he was on the cusp of such an important new venture.

Yet he came all the same, because the publicity he’d gained since his adventures had been televised had given him clout that was worth something. His survival-course business had skyrocketed. A meeting here, a party or a photo opportunity there, and now he was at a point where he could kick his actions up to another level, beyond just fund-raising. His carefully devised courses for kids were on the brink of being a reality, a way at last to make a real difference that might compensate for his past mistakes. He hadn’t needed to come to the city that often to keep his agent happy and his popularity high. And with the launch of this new course he needed that popularity more than ever.

The unexpected revelation that the Internet was awash with a rumour that his notoriously tough survival-skills documentaries were actually bullshit was so unbelievable that at first he thought it was a joke. Surfing the Internet wasn’t at the top of his priority list at any time, certainly not when he was in the middle of nowhere risk-assessing potential sites for river crossings. As a result the rumour was at full pelt in the media before he knew a thing about it. A phone call from one of his employees informing him that he was currently trending online confirmed that, no, unfortunately, it was perfectly true. He’d watched the offending video and he’d had plenty of time on the train to read about the backlash in the press, invariably accompanied by an endless collection of glamour shots of Evangeline Staverton-Lynch.