The Show by Tilly Bagshawe Read Free Book Online Page B

certainly be that,’ said Laura.
    ‘Have you thought about local opposition? How do you want to handle that?’ Eddie asked. ‘You realize that for every villager who’s excited by the idea of television cameras in the village stores, there’ll be five who feel violated and think you’re defacing their community.’
    Laura shrugged breezily. ‘Gabe and I can take a bit of stick.’
    ‘It might be worse than that,’ Eddie said seriously. ‘If we go forward with this, we all need to be prepared for a fight.’
    They finished their coffees and Eddie got up to go.
    ‘I’ll get my lawyer to draw something up,’ he told Laura. ‘In the meantime, why don’t you see if you can whip up any interest this side of the pond. And I’ll book my flights to California.’
    After he left, Laura sat frozen at the dining table for a full minute, feeling not unlike Dorothy after the twister deposited her in Oz.

    Did that conversation really just happen?
    Are we really going to do this?
    She laughed out loud.
    Screw you, John Bingham.
    I’m about to produce the next big thing in British television.

CHAPTER FOUR
    ‘Champagne, sir?’
    Eddie Wellesley had barely stepped over the threshold of Michael Hart’s Neo-Palladian mansion when he was accosted by a preposterously handsome young man bearing a silver tray.
    ‘Thank you.’ Eddie sipped at the dainty crystal flute as he walked down the white marble hallway, feeling like an extra in a Roger Moore movie from the seventies. The famous producer’s house was the last world in vulgarity: ridiculously huge, opulent, gold-plated, and so eye-wateringly naff Eddie doubted whether it could ever have been built in England. At home, even pop stars and footballers and reality stars drew the line somewhere. But not in Los Angeles. Here, there were no lines. Eddie rather liked it.
    Even better than the house itself, with its fish tanks and cream silk carpets and solid gold taps and hideous portraits of the lady of the house in various states of undress, were Eddie’s fellow guests. Michael Hart clearly had a type when it came to the fairer sex. Lithe, obviously underage girls who looked like models but were probably prostitutes, mingled with older women whose faces and bodies had all been surgically re-created, to greater or lesser degrees. With the exception of the waiters, who all looked like actors, and the sports stars (nine foot tall to a man and black as the ace of spades), the men were all short, ugly, old and fat. And rich , Eddie presumed, judging by the seven-figure cars pulling up to the valet station, and the improbably proportioned women on their stumpy little arms. The whole affair could be filed under ‘Jeremy Clarkson’s wet dream’.

    Despite the hordes of people, Macy Johanssen was easy to find. Of course, Eddie already knew what she looked like. He’d spent hour upon hour in the last two weeks watching some truly ghastly American television in search of the right presenter for the Swell Valley series. Macy Johanssen had fairly leaped off the screen.
    Macy’s agent, Paul Meyer, had put it perfectly when he telephoned Eddie at his hotel this afternoon to suggest he ‘swing by’ the Hart party.
    ‘If Macy shows up at all, she’ll be there to talk business. Look for the only woman surrounded by at least four powerful men and with all her clothes on. And if that doesn’t work, look down.’
    And there she was, a tiny figure in a black Calvin Klein trouser suit with a fitted tuxedo jacket, holding court amongst a gaggle of enraptured executives from Sony. Her dark hair was cut in her signature sleek bob, her porcelain skin flawless and her crystal-blue eyes sharp and intelligent.
    ‘Excuse me.’ Eddie effortlessly parted the throng, his cut-glass English accent slicing through the air like a silver monogrammed knife through butter. ‘Miss Johanssen? I’m Sir Edward Wellesley. I wonder, might I have a word?’

    Macy turned and glared at him.
    ‘We’ll leave you