Friends & Rivals (34 page)

‘Miss Bryce? I'm so s-sorry to bother you. But do you think I could maybe get your autograph?'

Kendall looked up from her newspaper. The boy was about fourteen, and as pale and spotty as a Dalmatian puppy. He was holding up a copy of her 2011 calendar and a marker pen with such an endearing look of hope that Kendall couldn't help but crack a smile.

‘Sure.' She wrote her name, followed by the usual hugs and kisses, and the boy skipped away, gushing thanks. Then her second macaroon arrived, an object of such utter, ambrosial deliciousness it was hard not to feel just a teensy bit happier having bitten into it.

But only a teensy bit. The newspaper picture soon brought her back down to earth.

It was a shot of Jack Messenger walking down a rural lane with his arm wrapped around Catriona Charles's waist. Catriona looked marginally less frumpy and enormous than usual. She visibly
had
a waist for Jack to wrap his arm around. Jack looked his usual aloof, handsome, rigid-jawed self. Except that he was smiling, really smiling. As for Catriona, her round, kindly face was practically alight with happiness, beaming back up at Jack like some love-struck moon.

Or was it? Perhaps Kendall
was
reading a lot into one long-lens, more-than-slightly-grainy picture. Stella Bayley certainly thought so, and had said as much in no uncertain terms when they spoke this morning. ‘I've just spent the better part of a week with Catriona. If she's sleeping with Jack, I'm a republican, OK? Believe me, there's no way.' According to Stella, the only reason the picture was considered newsworthy in the first place was because of the media furore surrounding the now publicly announced defection of The Blitz from Jester to JSM. What started out as a gossip piece in the music press soon went mainstream once Jester's other acts started following The Blitz's lead. Suddenly the headlines were everywhere.

Ivan Charles's Rival Strikes Back.

Bayley and Co Bail on Jester.

Jester's Wild: How Jack Messenger Got His Revenge.

So far, in a single week, Ivan had seen almost sixty per cent of Jester's client list defect to his arch rival. Up till now, JSM hadn't had a single classical artist on their books, but that hadn't stopped Jack from opening his corporate arms to welcome Jester's Ned Williams and Joyce Wu. Jack's interest in The Blitz might conceivably have been viewed as legitimately commercial. But his open-door policy towards anyone and everyone who had had so much as a cup of tea at Jester, and the speed with which he was siphoning off Ivan's business, was starting to look more like a personal vendetta. Apparently, JSM's conversations with many of these artists had begun quietly months ago. In fact, the only Jester client with whom Jack Messenger and Lex Abrahams had not spoken was Kendall Bryce.

Stella Bayley seemed confident that this was a temporary state of affairs. ‘Jack will call you. Of course he will. You're the point of all of this, honey. Everything else is just foreplay.'

Stella sounded so down, so defeated, Kendall didn't have the heart to question her further about it. Evidently Brett had already packed up and moved in with his mistress in LA, leaving poor Stella stranded. But, as appealing as it was to think that Jack viewed her, Kendall, as the ultimate prize, it didn't ring wholly true. The last time she had seen Jack in person, in The Brentwood restaurant in LA back in the spring, he'd practically looked right through her. As for Lex, he still hadn't forgiven her for the Chateau Marmont photos. Kendall felt terrible about that whole incident, but it was done now, and if it hadn't been done she wouldn't be back on top, riding high with ‘Liar, Liar'. It had been a matter of survival.

Still, Jack Messenger's surprise trip to England had left Kendall feeling deeply unhinged. Just the thought that he was in the same country as her, perhaps even the same city, set off a swarm of butterflies in her stomach. It was not a pleasant sensation.

Finishing her macaroon, she folded the paper shut, forcing the cosy image of Catriona and Jack out of her mind. That was one thing Stella Bayley was right about. No way in hell was Jack sexually interested in a frump like Ivan's ex-wife. He probably staged the pictures just to further irritate Ivan, and rub salt in the wound of his stealth attack on Jester. But, even as she had the thought, Kendall realized this was unlikely. Jack might have good reason to hate Ivan, but he wasn't vicious and would never stoop so low as to use Catriona, or any innocent party, for that matter. Maybe there really
was
something between the two of them? It was an idea too awful to contemplate.

As for herself, Kendall clearly no longer fitted into the ‘innocent party' category.
Does Jack despise me as much as he despises Ivan?
Kendall wondered.
Or is Stella right?
Has he come here to win me back?

She pushed her plate away, feeling sick to her stomach with a potent mixture of hope and fear, panic and excitement. Clearly this wasn't over. But what would Jack's next move be?

‘You can consider this a formal, verbal warning.'

Don Peters glared at Ivan Charles from across his desk. A big, fat man with ruddy, drink-ravaged cheeks and a bulging paunch pushing his hairy belly through the gaping holes between his shirt buttons, admirers usually referred to Don Peters as ‘larger-than-life'. Detractors preferred ‘lard-arsed megolamaniac'. Either way, Don was a television heavyweight in every sense of the word, a man capable of making or breaking careers with a nod of his bald head or a wave of his fat, stubby finger.

Only a year ago he'd had high hopes for Ivan Charles. After his disastrous performance in the
Talent Quest
pilot, the telegenic co-founder of Jester had somehow managed to rediscover his confidence. Since then, the public had warmed to him as a judge, particularly since his vocal championing of the little girl from Yorkshire, Ava Bentley. But therein lay the rub. Don and the other
Talent Quest
producers had warned Ivan repeatedly about his closeness to Ava and told him to back off.

‘No one contestant can become bigger than the show. Nor can any individual judge. Ava Bentley's contractual relationship is with House of Cards and ITV, not with you. I'm switching her to Stacey Harlow's group. You can take Mike Matterson.'

‘The brickie?' Ivan sounded aghast.

‘He's got a great voice. Second favourite to win after Ava, as you well know. Anyway, I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.'

Officially, Ivan had accepted his producer's directive. There was not much else he could do. But behind the scenes he'd waged a ruthlessly successful PR campaign in the press, leaking stories about how distraught Ava was to have been forced to switch mentors, making sure that both the media and the public continued to view him and Ava as an inseparable team. In the end a vast Facebook and Twitter campaign led ITV to reverse the producer's decision.

‘I'm sorry, Don,' said Mike Grayson, Head of Programming, in a tense phone call to Don Peters. ‘It's bad for the network. You'll have to give her back to Ivan Charles.'

Don Peters was livid.

From that point on he'd been actively looking for an excuse to sack Ivan. After weeks of nothing, he'd suddenly been handed three such excuses on a plate. Firstly, Ava Bentley had dropped out of the competition with some mysterious illness. All of a sudden, Ivan's closeness to the show's star began to work against him. Without Ava, viewer approval of Ivan's judging performance dropped through the floor. Secondly, Ivan had spent longer than agreed in France with his girlfriend and protégée, Kendall Bryce, thus for the first time putting himself in material breach of his
Talent Quest
contract. And thirdly, Jester, his once flourishing music-management business, and the reason he'd been hired as a judge in the first place, was very publicly collapsing around his ears.

‘For
Talent Quest
to be credible, our panel need to be genuine players within the music business,' Don told Mike Grayson. ‘Read the papers, Mike. Ivan Charles is a has-been.'

Ivan kept a poker face when he looked back at Don.
Disgusting, fat fuck. You can ‘verbal warning' me all you like, but it's gonna take a lot more than two extra days in Paris for you to work your way out of my contract, chum.

Aloud he said calmly, ‘Understood, Don. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.'

Closing the door of Peters' office behind him, Ivan made straight for the Gents, locking himself in a stall and sitting down heavily on the closed loo seat. Loosening his tie and undoing the top two buttons of his shirt, he leaned forward and put his head between his knees.

Calm down. Breathe.

Ivan had always prided himself on his physical fitness. But, in the last few months, and in the last week in particular, stress had really started to take its toll. Right now he could feel his chest tightening and his airways start to constrict. His palms, face and underarms were all sweating profusely, and his head throbbed and ached, as if someone had pumped it full of air and his skull was about to explode with the pressure.

Xanax no longer helped, but he took one anyway, swallowing it dry. He must try not to panic. Tonight he and Kendall would drive up to Yorkshire, ostensibly on a romantic break, but actually so that Ivan could finally get Ava's father, Dave, to sign her contract with Jester. Once Ava was safely and legally under his wing, everything would be fine. Jester would be saved. Ava would print money for whatever record label was lucky enough to land her, and Kendall's new album,
Flame
, looked set to do great things, despite her rocky start at Polydor. With his own and Jester's star once again rising, Don Peters wouldn't be able to get rid of him at
Talent Quest
. And, even if he did, it wouldn't matter.
Talent Quest
had got him Ava and had made him a household name in the UK. In many ways, the show's usefulness to Ivan was on the wane anyway.

It wasn't Don Peters who was making him so anxious. It was his erstwhile friend, Jack bloody Messenger. Though it pained Ivan to admit it, Jack's hostile raid on Jester had been brilliantly planned and meticulously executed. The Blitz's defection to JSM had come as a complete shock, as had the speed with which his other acts, especially his longstanding classical list, had deserted him. But what really scared him was Kendall.

Since the earliest days of their relationship, Ivan had feared that Kendall still harboured romantic feelings for his hated rival. The thought of Kendall wanting Jack sexually drove him to the brink of madness, tormenting him with a jealousy he had never experienced before. She'd assured him countless times that those feelings were over, that he was the only lover she wanted, and the only manager. But Ivan's doubts remained. And now Jack was here, in England, crawling all over every aspect of Ivan's life like a plague of lice. Was Kendall next on Jack's hit list? Ivan could only assume that she was. If Kendall left him, it would wipe him out both professionally and personally. But would she go? Would she really stab him in the back like that, after everything they'd been through together, and how close they'd become over this past summer? The truth was, he didn't know. It was the uncertainty of it all that was slowly killing him.

Nor had today's pictures of Jack and Catriona helped. Ivan knew he had no right to quiz Catriona on her friendships, romantic or otherwise; that he had lost that right long ago. But seeing pictures of her arm in arm with the man who was openly and publicly trying to eviscerate his business had shaken him to the core. It was like watching your mother show up at boarding school and taking your worst enemy, the boy who'd bullied you and stolen your lunch money all term, out for a cream tea. The fact that you had bullied the boy in the past didn't make it any better. It was still a betrayal, and it hurt all the more for being so utterly unexpected. Ivan had never trusted Kendall. She was too like him to be trusted. But Catriona had always been his rock, her loyalty solid and constant and unchanging. Was Jack trying to steal that too?

Ivan opened the stall and splashed cold water on his face.
You'll be fine. You just have to keep your cool.
He had another difficult meeting at four, with Jester's accountants, followed by a string of crisis talks with Jester's remaining acts, such as they were, almost all of whom now wanted to renegotiate the terms of their contracts.
Once your blood's in the water, everyone's a shark
, thought Ivan bitterly.

Later that night, Kendall ordered in dinner for Ivan at the Cheyne Walk flat. She'd made an effort. Lobster linguini was his favourite, followed by panna cotta, coffee and hand-made praline truffles from the new chocolatier on Old Church Street.

‘I thought you might need cheering up,' she said thoughtfully. ‘You've had a hell of a day.'

‘I do need cheering up,' said Ivan, grabbing her quite roughly by the wrist and pulling her onto his lap. Fumbling with the buttons on her blouse, he pulled it open hungrily, unhooking her bra and cupping her incredible breasts in his hands. His thumbs traced slow circles around her nipples as he kissed her, forcing his tongue into her mouth and pressing his stubble hard against her soft cheeks. Instinctively Kendall arched her back, kissing him back and squirming with pleasure. Tonight she needed the release as much as he did.

They staggered into the bedroom, discarding items of clothing as they went, and fell onto the bed, grappling like bear cubs. Kendall had always been aroused by the fight. She liked the feeling of being overcome, and let out little moans of excitement as Ivan flipped her over onto her back, spreading her legs with his knee and pinning her arms back on the bed with the weight of his body.

‘Tell me you want me.'

‘I want you,' she whispered, obediently and truthfully. ‘Please, Ivan, don't play with me. Just fuck me. Now.'