“Bloody paparazzi.”
“Indeed. And yet, your life is particularly full of incidents that attract them.”
Emile shrugged. He’d stopped reading the papers years ago.
“While your unsavory antics remained part of your personal life, I was able to overlook them. Now, however...”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“I’m afraid that the press and the public will not see things so clearly. No smoke without fire, I believe the saying is. And this time, your headlines will, quite clearly, bring the club into disrepute.”
“Mariella’s headlines,” he countered.
Gatz shrugged.
“I can’t stop them printing it.”
“True. I was thinking, rather, that it would be more beneficial to provide them with an alternative story.” Gatz flipped over several more pages in the thick file of press cuttings. “Prada de Lonzalles. You said she was at the party.”
“Yes.”
“She would like to resume your relationship?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Nevertheless, if the two of you were to announce today that you became engaged on Friday night, I believe that would effectively override Mariella’s version of events.”
“Not a chance.”
Gatz put the file down, pushed his chair back from the desk, and fixed Emile with a steely gaze.
“Let me be quite clear. If you don’t clean up your public persona, beginning with this current scandal, your contract will not be renewed at the end of the season.”
All the breath left Emile’s lungs. He could only stare at Gatz in total, speechless shock. He’d never dreamed that his career was in any danger.
“Call Prada.”
He shuddered with revulsion at the thought of it. The crocodile tears she’d shed when he’d refused to get back together with her on Friday, the whining pleas when she’d called earlier that morning…could he bear to live with a woman like that? Even for the sake of his career?
Gatz remained unmoved. The man was like a bloody stone.
There had to be a better alternative than Prada.
And there was.
Thérèse.
She’d been joking, earlier. But he’d thought then that if he’d wanted to go along with it, she just might have agreed. And at least she wouldn’t be expecting anything more than a convenient arrangement.
He took a deep breath and met Gatz’s unmoving gaze. “I have a better plan.”
…
“Spill.” Julie had brought wine, Theresa provided snacks, and both were curled up on squashy blue armchairs ready to dissect the events of the night before.
“Why do I have to go first?”
“Because I asked first.” Julie helped herself to olives stuffed with feta cheese.
“Fine. He’s French and he plays football.”
Julie’s mouth fell open and her wine glass tilted alarmingly.
“He also has a great apartment and tattoos on his back,” Theresa said casually as she filled her own wine glass.
“We’ll get to the tattoos in a minute. He’s a footballer? Famous?”
Theresa shrugged. “I’ve never heard of him.”
Julie dismissed that. “You don’t count. One day you’re going to be one of those High Court Judges who’ve never heard of the Beatles. What’s his name?”
“Wrong kind of lawyer to become a High Court Judge. He’s called Emile Renaud.”
Somehow, Julie looked even more stunned at this news.
“I have to text my brother right now.” Julie reached for her phone, but Theresa put out a hand to stop her.
“Wait. There’s something else.”
“He’s impotent? He’s got a third nipple? Can we sell the story to the tabloids?”
“No, no, and absolutely no way. Not yet.”
“Not yet? Teresa, what the hell has gotten into you? You’re not seriously planning a kiss and tell on this guy, are you?”
“No, of course not.”
“He probably wouldn’t appreciate it just at the moment, to be honest.”
“Why not at the moment?”
“Didn’t you watch the game this afternoon?”
Theresa rolled her eyes. “It’s a football match. Why would I watch it?”
Julie pulled out her iPad and started clicking through to find the website she was after. “That’s why.”
Pitch Brawl Destroys Woolwich’s Chances
Ernestinho, Renaud Both Banned
The photos showed two men entangled in a fight. Emile was on top, fist pulled back ready to smash into the other man’s jaw.
“Christ. What happened?”
“I don’t know what sparked it, but it was the other guy’s fault. He’d been needling Renaud throughout the match, then he tripped him up and hit him.”
“I guess Emile didn’t just sit back and take it.”
“Well, no. They had to be pulled apart.”
Theresa started to skim through the articles. “It says here that they’d had a disagreement in the locker room about a towel. That is ridiculous. I mean, I know they’re men, but a towel? Really?”
Julie refilled her glass and tilted the bottle in Theresa’s direction. She nodded and held out her glass.
“It’s got to be more than that,” Julie said. “Did he say anything to you?”
“No. I’d never heard of this other guy until now.”
“Didn’t you talk about anything?”
Theresa grinned. “Not last night. This morning we discussed his ex-girlfriend and his future wife.”
“The ex is Prada de Lonzalles, right? Total bimbo.”
“Yup. She rang him. Apparently, she doesn’t want to be ex anymore.”
“He’s not still interested in her, is he?”
“No.”
Julie frowned. “Didn’t you say she was his future wife?”
“No.” Theresa took a gulp of wine. She hadn’t planned to tell Julie this bit. “I asked him to marry me.”
“You what?” The screech was loud enough to set dogs barking three streets away. “Haven’t you been listening to yourself for the last ten years? You don’t want to get married. And if you did, there are plenty of men on your mother’s list who’d be better husbands than Emile Renaud.”
“That’s the point.”
Julie stared at her for a minute then shook her head and slumped back into her chair. “It’s me, isn’t it? I’m having one of those dreams again where nobody behaves like they do in real life. Let me know when I need to wake up.”
Theresa laughed. “No, listen to me. It could have been the perfect plan. Mum would be so horrified by having him as a son-in-law that she’d never dare suggest marriage to me again.”
Julie emptied her glass and held it out. “Pour me another one. If I keep drinking, eventually, one of us will start making sense.”
Theresa filled Julie’s glass and topped up her own. “He’s got an ex he’s struggling to shake off. This would be the perfect way to get the message over to her.”
“Oh, sure. In bizarro world.”
“That’s what he thought. He’s probably right. But it still leaves me with a mother who is determined to marry me off to an eligible bachelor before I get left on the shelf forever.”
“She said that?”
“I pointed out that this isn’t a Georgette Heyer novel and that no one has been on or off the shelf since approximately 1837. But she won’t take no for an answer, and now she’s started bringing in reinforcements. Next weekend it’s Hetta Black’s son. Widower with three children.”