Reputation in Tatters Read online

  Determined to try and put his judgement aside—even though he privately thought she must have brought a lot of her disasters upon herself—Nash had no doubt that he could help Freya rebuild her career. He’d taken on many almost ruined reputations of people in the public eye before this, and helped restore them to a much more positive aspect. But if he accepted this job it would definitely be on the proviso that from now on her behaviour had to be far more exemplary than it might have been in the past.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you don’t need a lesson from me about people being easily manipulated by the media to believe almost anything they’re told.’ The broad shoulders beneath his beautifully tailored jacket lifted in a shrug. ‘It’s my view that you need to put an end to the publication of this “salacious drivel”, as you so rightly referred to it. And to do that you need to lend the proceedings a little dignity, by making a very calm but firm statement refuting every defamatory remark that’s been made by your ex.’

  ‘Nash is right, Freya.’ Oliver slid his big hand over hers and squeezed it. ‘That man has got away with murder, and it simply can’t be allowed to continue! If you cannot bring yourself to do something about this for yourself, then think about what your poor mother has gone through in all of this!’ He directed his suddenly emotional gaze towards Nash and Oliver’s dark eyes glittered. ‘My sister has all but suffered a nervous breakdown because of what has gone on,’ he explained. ‘Where’s the justice in that? James Frazier has no morals, and no remorse for anything he has done to our family, and he continues to carry on unchecked by anybody! Even the press is on his side! And even though he’s maligned Freya’s reputation, and all but bled her dry financially because of his lies in court—and because a well-known newspaper readily supplied him with some cutthroat lawyer from America, wanting to make a name for himself in the divorce—he still continues to cause havoc!’

  The room seemed to spin a little. Freya was fine when she wasn’t thinking about the devastating, almost unbelievable chain of events that had dragged her remorselessly down into the pits of hell, but hearing it stated out loud by her uncle, and registering the affecting passion in his voice, she wanted to find a remote desert island somewhere and remain there, forgotten by everybody until she died…

  Why had she been so blind to the truth about James’s character? she asked herself again in silent anguish. Why had she allowed herself to be so easily seduced by his lies? But again she had to consider that her downfall wasn’t just due to her ex’s bad behaviour. Some of the blame, if blame was to be apportioned, had to lie with her. Maybe if she hadn’t fooled herself so convincingly that his regard was sincere because of her own desperate underlying need to be loved then none of this awful mess would have happened?

  ‘Well…’ Clearing his throat, and easing his striped silk tie away from his collar a little, Nash glanced briefly down at his watch. ‘It seems to me, my friend, that only your niece can make the decision about what she wants to do. If you want me to help you, Ms Carpenter, then I will. But I will also need you to comply with how I suggest we proceed—to the letter.’ Turning his gaze to Freya, he registered the stark unhappiness exposed to him in her coffee-dark eyes, and a genuine bolt of sympathy rippled through him. Lousy choices or no, she must have gone through hell, he thought. She was still going through hell, by the look of her…despite her initial insistence that she didn’t need any help. ‘Ms Carpenter?’

  ‘This statement that you suggest I make…would you be willing to help me make it?’

  There was the smallest flash of uncertainty in her dark-eyed glance, and Nash straightened in his chair. Satisfaction at the knowledge that she was going to relent to receiving some help pulsed through him, as well as gratification that he could do something to repay the generous friendship that her uncle had extended to him.

  ‘Of course. If you decide to hire me to work on your behalf, Ms Carpenter, I can promise you that I will bring every ounce of expertise and assistance to your aid that is at my disposal.’

  ‘Then I’ll do it.’

  Putting her hand up to her hair, she tucked a few silky strands behind her ear and looked as solemn as she had during that party where Nash had first met her. If he was any judge, right now she seemed to be garnering every ounce of steel she had left in her to face whatever was coming next—yet he also acknowledged that she must be dreading deliberately putting her life back under public scrutiny again.

  In the absence of any further speech from his niece, Oliver leant across the desk and shook Nash’s hand. ‘Thank you, my friend. I have only known you for a short time, but I believe you to be a man of integrity and honour. Freya needs somebody like you on her side at long last… This dreadful situation has all but broken her.’

  ‘What are you saying, Uncle Oliver? You know that isn’t true!’ Getting to her feet, Freya glared first at Oliver, then more pointedly at Nash. ‘One thing I’d like to make very clear at the outset, Mr Taylor-Grant: I may have suffered a serious setback or two during the past couple of years—one or two broken bones in a car accident being the least of them, funnily enough—but I am not under any circumstances “broken”. And even if I were…I’m not looking for anyone to “fix” me. I’m tougher than I look, and if I’ve survived what I’ve come through so far without going completely insane, then I’m quite capable of surviving more of the same without turning into some kind of pathetic jibbering wreck!’

  ‘Well…it’s my hope, and your uncle’s too, I’m sure, that you won’t have to endure too much stress and strain much longer, Ms Carpenter. Once you’ve made your statement to the press, we’ll quickly get on with the task of helping you re-establish your career and getting you some very positive publicity for a change, so that you can do just that.’

  The man in front of her appeared so utterly convinced of what he was saying that something inside Freya—some frozen little shard—seemed to break away from the ice floe around her heart and suddenly start to melt in the first hopeful feeling she’d had in a very long time. When her uncle had first mooted the suggestion of seeing this friend of his, who was a big name in PR, she had been understandably reticent, uncertain that it would achieve anything good. But now, having properly met Nash Taylor-Grant, and in spite of her fear of ever placing her trust in a man again…any man…she felt there was something about him that suggested the kind of rock-solid strength and reliability that anyone in trouble would welcome. Something that told her he could negotiate a minefield on his wits alone if he had to, and get to the other side intact. And it wasn’t just the sharp, elegant cut of his designer suit on a body that suggested he was a man in his prime in every way, or the defiant hardness of his jaw that threw out a challenge to ‘do your worst’ that convinced her. No…it was something innate in the man himself.

  Having found her ability to trust severely battered after what James had done, Freya more than longed for her assumption about Nash to be true. But she’d lost faith in her judgement too…she couldn’t deny that.

  Sitting back in her chair, she smoothed her hand down the side of her skirt and tried to hold onto some of the previous hope she’d allowed herself to feel. When she raised her gaze to re-examine Nash’s strongly handsome face, the blue of his eyes seemed to increase their potent wattage, and astonishingly Freya experienced a little dart of sensual awareness implode quietly yet devastatingly inside her.

  ‘If you could really accomplish all of that…’ She shrugged her shoulders a little, suddenly alarmed at the idea that he knew what that frank gaze of his had briefly done to her. ‘I’d be in your debt, Mr Taylor-Grant.’

  ‘Why don’t you call me Nash? If we’re going to be working together for a while formality only gets in the way…don’t you agree?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  NASH cancelled his next two appointments and went back to the office to do his homework. He needed to act quickly if they were going to turn the tide of public consciousness in Freya Carpenter’s favour, and, frankly, her loud-mouthed ex had had th
ings his way for far too long. It was time to redress the balance. Having seen some of the evidence of the fine work that the actress was capable of, Nash was of the opinion that it would be a crying shame were she never to act in front of an audience again. And, being a friend of her uncle’s, he felt a certain obligation to double his efforts in helping her. But to say that he’d been surprised by the revelation that Freya Carpenter was Oliver Beaumarche’s niece was akin to being surprised to discover that the restaurateur was closely related to royalty! Not that Nash was impressed…it was just that it had come as the most unexpected shock. He’d known Oliver for a while now, and never at any time had the older man indicated that he had a famous niece. Or that she was a famous niece in deep trouble…

  Tapping the end of his pen against his teeth, he leaned forward in his chair to more closely examine the glossy colour print that lay in front of him on the desk. He wasn’t immune to the power of the darkly melting eyes that gazed back at him. Having seen them at close quarters for himself, he could see how a man would be apt to lose his sense of perspective if he looked into them too deeply and for too long… Their distinctly exotic slant helped to make them damn near unforgettable too. And when they were magnified up there on the big screen, as they had been in the past, would anyone be immune to their arresting impact?

  Although in the picture before him her lips were parted in a smile, there was a vulnerability that lingered there too…a sensitivity that only the most hardened individual would be blind to. There were faces and people that scarcely left an impression…Freya Carpenter was definitely not one of those. With that amazing fall of rippling dark hair, as well as the slender, long-legged figure that she’d hidden almost primly behind that understated grey suit, her looks would guarantee her plenty of attention whether she was famous or not. A woman with that kind of stand-out sensual cachet could reel the men in like the most willing fish you ever saw… In light of that fact, Freya had certainly been unlucky in settling on a poor specimen like James Frazier to get hitched to.

  Almost reluctantly setting aside the photograph, because its subject was frankly beginning to mesmerise him, Nash turned his attention to several different accounts of her headline-catching divorce, as well as the latest press speculation splashed all over the celebrity gossip pages, and he read them more carefully and avidly than a scientist reading the results of the most compulsive research…

  The room had turned cold, and outside a fine drizzly rain was falling. Really, Freya didn’t care one way or the other. Why should she care when the sky had already fallen in on top of her? The afternoon light was fading but, huddled into one of the deep corners of her once luxurious Fortnum and Mason sofa, she couldn’t bring herself to move and switch on a lamp. Instead, she drew her legs towards her beneath the long wraparound skirt she wore with a baggy sweater and wrapped her chilled arms around her knees. It was definitely a ‘hide under the duvet’ kind of mood that had enveloped her, but she was too weary even to try and accomplish even that. She’d been endeavouring to read a long-time favourite novel—a kind of security blanket she reached for when times were tough and she needed to feel safe—but the words were a waving sea of hard-to-pin-down sentences, because her mind was too preoccupied.

  What if she’d done completely the wrong thing in agreeing to make the statement Nash had suggested she make to the press? What if it just drew to her even more horrible and unwanted attention? Even now there were two or three photographers lurking around near her house, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. She could spot them a mile away! Returning to the idea of making a public statement, Freya groaned out loud at the prospect. What if her words came out wrong? Or she stumbled and they immediately concluded that she was indeed the ‘wreck’ that James had all but convinced them she was? A once bright star whose light had blazed all too briefly but had soon burned itself out, relegating her to the ranks of has-been.

  Dropping her head into her lap, she squeezed her eyes shut tight and willed the world to go away. But, no matter how much she wished it, it never did. It was still there, in all the same washed-out colours, whenever she opened her eyes again. Her uncle was only trying to help her. She knew that. He believed in her talent even if the rest of the world didn’t. He wanted her to work again, to express the gifts that he judged God to have blessed her with. But, in spite of her brave words in his office yesterday, when she had declared to Nash that she wasn’t broken and that he shouldn’t try to fix her, today was a different story. Today the twin demons of fear and self-pity had returned with a vengeance, like honed daggers attacking her in the dark, and all Freya wanted to do was hide.

  The sound of the doorbell echoing through the house sent shockwaves flooding through her whole being and, lifting her head, she pushed back her hair from her whitened face. Uncurling her legs, she was almost disorientated by the primal river of panic that assailed her as she got shakily to her feet. The cold in the room and in her heart made her shiver almost violently. The only people who could possibly be visiting her legitimately would be her uncle or her mother—she didn’t have an agent or a manager anymore, and most of her ‘friends’ had been conspicuous by their absence since her very public fall from grace. But both those two always rang her first, to warn her that they were coming.

  Terrified in case the visitor was another mercenary reporter or photographer, taking the opportunity to catch her unawares—it had happened too regularly to be beyond a joke—Freya cautiously negotiated the crimson-carpeted corridor of the hallway in her bare feet, narrowing her gaze at the broad-shouldered shadow that hovered behind the opaque glass panels in the door. She froze for a moment, immobilised by fear. When she did finally move she hurried back inside the living room and, edging cautiously towards the large bay window, carefully moved aside a small section of the roll-down blind to peer outside.

  The figure she saw standing on the wide front steps, his rain-dampened gilded hair a notable contrast against the expensive black cashmere of his overcoat, made her heart jump into her mouth. Nash! Her uncle must have trusted him enough to give him her home address, she guessed, but why hadn’t he rung to warn her first?

  Dropping the blind abruptly into place again, as though it had suddenly turned into something unpleasant to touch, she smoothed her hands nervously down the sides of her rumpled skirt. Trying to banish the feeling of terror that gripped her at the thought of speaking to anyone today, she exhaled a long breath that was infused with both a kind of desperation and a sense of hopelessness. Dear God! Was she destined to spend the rest of her life hiding away from the rest of the world inside her own home? A home was meant to be a place of refuge…not a prison!

  Her mouth feeling as dry as sawdust, Freya speared her fingers through her waving dark hair and reached a decision. She had no choice but to talk to him. After agreeing to make the statement yesterday, she couldn’t now tell him that she’d changed her mind. There was always the danger that this man would also believe she was too unstable to be trusted if she told him to go away.

  Reluctantly opening the door, she wrapped her arms across the beige coloured sweater that all but swamped her slender frame and briefly, jumpily, met the searing blue beam of Nash’s immediately searching gaze.

  ‘You didn’t ring me to let me know to expect you,’ she snapped accusingly. Although her words gave the impression that she was the one in charge of the situation, Freya’s courage all but deserted her as she glanced up into her visitor’s compelling visage.

  ‘Yeah…I’m sorry about that.’ He grimaced, but didn’t appear overly concerned. ‘Your uncle gave me your number, but I was nearby when he rang me in the car just now and I thought I wouldn’t waste any time. I need you to fill me in on a few things, and I thought we could work on your statement together. Can I come in?’

  Unable to think of an excuse in the world to deny him, Freya pressed herself back against the wall to let him pass her, then hurriedly closed the door again, her dark eyes making a swift reconnaissance of the street outsid
e just before she did so, in case anyone should be taking a particular interest in her or her visitor. But, divertingly, the disturbing soft musk scent of Nash’s masculine cologne impacted the air around her with unexpected sensuality, and she felt its potent effect immediately in the pit of her stomach and in her too-dry mouth. She told herself her reaction was simply down to nerves. All her responses were heightened by anxiety today, and she’d sell her last possession to access some calm from somewhere.

  ‘Let’s go into the living room.’ Freya eased past him, making as much space between them as possible, before turning into the room she had so recently and reluctantly vacated.

  Following her slender form, and wondering why she’d chosen to conceal it in clothes that seemed far too big, Nash was vaguely alarmed by the smudged mauve shadows he’d glimpsed beneath her fascinating eyes. Once inside the room he had another cause for alarm. There was a biting chill in the air that almost matched the freezing temperature outside. There was no evidence of heat at all, even though it was such a raw day. None of the several lamps that he could see around the room were turned on either, even though the evening’s shadows were threatening the pale afternoon light that remained. The furniture seemed sparse, and apart from the plush cinnamon-coloured sofa dominating the centre of the room, and a matching high-backed armchair with a scarlet cushion, there were very few comforts that he could detect. A further disturbing bolt of concern shot through him.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ he asked, before he could check the words. Freya regarded him as though his voice had just aroused her from the deepest of drugging sleeps. A little frown appeared in the softly pale space between her brows. ‘I’m fine… But if you’re cold, I’ll switch on the fire.’