Emma Darcy - The Master Player

‘Are you frightened your mother will persuade you to keep her on as your agent?’ he asked curiously.

‘No. I just don’t want to listen to her. If you can work it without me…’

‘It will undoubtedly go more smoothly without you. I’ll have my lawyer join us for breakfast in the morning. You can give him your instructions and he’ll act on them.’

‘I think that would be best.’

Another decision made-by herself, for herself.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, rising from his chair. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Chloe, I’ll call him now. Will eight o’clock suit?’

‘Yes, but…’ She looked down at her blue silk party dress. ‘I have only these clothes.’

‘A bathrobe will be fine for breakfast,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll arrange for clothes to be brought to you from the hotel boutiques when they open. Don’t worry about appearances. The big picture is more important.’

The big picture…one she was drawing, not her mother or Tony or even Maximilian Hart, who was giving her choices, not making decisions for her. She watched him move away, taking out his mobile phone to make the call to his lawyer. Somehow his power didn’t feel quite so intimidating anymore. He was using it on her behalf-the white knight slaying her dragons.

She couldn’t help liking him for it.

STEPHANIE ROLLINS did not bring a lawyer to the meeting. She walked into Max’s office wearing power clothes-purple dress, wide red belt, red high heels, red fingernails-with the overweening confidence of a woman who had always held sway over her daughter and didn’t believe that was about to change. Not even the presence of his lawyer shook her, not visibly. She viewed them both with a haughty disdain, as though Max was merely following through on his word, putting on a show.

The assumption was implicit that whatever Chloe had said to him last night, she would have backtracked on it this morning. There would be too big a void in her life without her mother. She wouldn’t be able to cope on her own, had no-one else to turn to now that Tony Lipton had committed the unforgivable, destroying his credibility.

Max greeted her with cold courtesy, introduced her to Angus Hilliard, who headed his legal department, saw her seated and returned to his own chair behind the executive desk. ‘As it turns out, there is no need for any discussion, Stephanie,’ he said, gesturing for Angus to hand her the document severing her services as Chloe’s agent.

She took it, read it, raised derisive eyes. ‘This isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Chloe will come back to me once she’s calmed down. If you hadn’t interfered last night, given your support…’

‘Which she will continue to have.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll look after what you perceive as her interests for the duration of her contract with you. It serves your interests. But after that…’

‘I can steer Chloe to a reputable agent who will not take the exorbitant percentage of her earnings that you do,’ Max slid in, his dislike of this woman so intense he intended to completely sabotage her influence over Chloe.

Anger spurted into her eyes. ‘Without me she would be nothing. Chloe knows that. I engineered every step of her career, had her trained to be capable of carrying off any role, chose what would be the best showcase for her, pushed her into becoming the star you are now exploiting.’

‘Yours is not the face that lights up the screen,’ Max stated cuttingly. ‘You didn’t train you daughter to do that. It’s a natural gift, which you have exploited for your own gain. In actual fact, you are nothing without her.’

Max enjoyed ramming that home, seeing the furious frustration in her eyes.

‘You think you’ve got the upper hand?’ she threw at him defiantly, rising to her feet and tossing the legal notice of separation on the desk. ‘When your contract with Chloe is up, I’ll see that she never signs another one with you.’

He eyeballed her with all the ruthless power at his command. ‘Don’t count on it, Stephanie. I’d advise you to use what you’ve milked out of your daughter to get a life of your own.’

She stared back, blazing fury gradually giving way to speculative calculation. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you making it so personal?’

He shrugged and relaxed back in his chair, a sardonic smile playing on his lips. ‘In this instance, the role of crusader for justice appeals to me.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Or have you got the hots for Chloe? Seizing the moment?’

That shot was too close to the bone to ignore. He produced a mocking look. ‘I am somewhat occupied with Shannah Lian, who, I doubt, would take kindly to that suggestion. Whatever my reputation with women, Stephanie, I’m not known for playing with two at the same time.’

‘Whatever your interest is in Chloe, you’ll move on. You always do,’ she retorted, her chin lifting belligerently. ‘And once you lose your interest in her, she’ll come back to me.’

Never, Max thought with such violent feeling it surprised him. He watched Stephanie Rollins sail out of his office on her triumphant exit line, silently vowing she would not triumph. The door was slammed shut behind her to punctuate her power and Max instantly started planning to negate it.

‘Phew! I’d hate to be in that woman’s clutches,’ Angus commented.

Max swivelled his chair to face the end of the desk where his lawyer was seated. Angus Hilliard was in his forties; bald, bespectacled and in the habit of hiding his incisive brain behind a mild manner. ‘The trick is not to give those long red fingernails anything to draw blood from. She’s had her pound of flesh, Angus.’

‘That’s for sure.’ Behind the rimless glasses the lawyer’s grey eyes glittered with the urge to act. ‘From what Chloe told us over breakfast about everything she’d earned as a minor, I could probably get her mother for fraudulent appropriation of…’

‘No. We don’t dig up the past,’ Max said firmly. ‘Better for Chloe to close the door on that victimisation rather than relive it in court. I’m not sure she’d be up for it. Focusing on what she can do with the future is a far more positive step. And to give her the chance to take it, we have to stop her mother from getting to her.’

‘Needs a bodyguard,’ Angus suggested. ‘Want me to arrange it?’

‘Yes. Make it someone she’ll feel comfortable with, a fatherly type, an experienced guy in his fifties. Have him come to my Vaucluse residence this afternoon for an interview with me.’

‘Will do.’ His mouth curved into a bemused little smile. ‘I’ve never seen you as a crusader for justice, Max, but I have to admit…there’s something about Chloe Rollins. Makes you want to do things for her.’

Her bodyguard would feel it, too, which was why Max didn’t want some attractive young hunk tuning himself in to her needs. He needed time to re-organise his affairs, time for Chloe to like having him in her life, and he wasn’t about to allow an attachment to develop with anyone else. He had to keep her on hold until he was ready to move.

‘A rather special something,’ he agreed, rising from his chair, smiling as he added, ‘And it’s no big deal for me to rescue and protect her. A small but satisfying challenge.’

Angus laughed. ‘That’s the Max I know. Very satisfying, winning against the monster mother. You’re going back to the hotel now?’

‘Yes. You’ll tie up all the ends with Tony Lipton’s contract?’

‘With knots that can’t be untied.’

Max nodded. ‘Thanks for your help, Angus.’

He left, assured he hadn’t shown his hand to anyone where Chloe Rollins was concerned. Nor would he until the time was right. A secret pleasure…the spice of anticipation…Max knew he would enjoy both as he waited.

Chloe could not relax. Her mind kept whirling around the idea of an independent life. It had shamed her this morning, revealing to Max and his lawyer how impossible it had been for her to strike out on her own. At eighteen, when she’d wanted to break free of her mother’s demands on her, the money that was supposed to have been put in a trust account over the years of her childhood and adolescence was simply not there.

Her mother had been in control of all her earnings and had used them as she’d seen fit; buying a home for them, spending it on whatever she’d decided was right for Chloe’s career, and right for her own as an agent to be reckoned with. With no funds and no training for anything else, her dream of independence had crumbled. She’d resigned herself to working as her mother directed, though insisting her financial share of any contract go straight into a bank account that only she could draw on.

She didn’t actually dislike the work. Having constructed dream worlds for herself ever since she was a child, it was easy to slip into whatever role a director wanted her to play, but sometimes she yearned for a real life-one where there was no pretence involved, no putting on a show, no expectation of her beyond being herself.

Without her mother and Tony constantly pushing her into whatever limelight could be arranged, she could make her own choices, as she had been doing since Maximilian Hart had stepped in and given her that freedom. The thought of his meeting with her mother this morning made her shudder. Being there would have been awful. She was glad he had given her the option of letting him handle it. But learning how to handle things herself from now on was a necessary step to complete independence.

The telephone rang.

It had to be him.

The hotel people had been instructed not to put any other caller through to this suite.

She hurried to the writing desk and snatched up the receiver, her heart pounding with apprehension over what had occurred with her mother. ‘Yes?’ spilled anxiously from her lips.

‘All done here,’ came the calm reply. ‘Your mother has been legally notified that she is no longer your agent. I’m on my way back to the hotel. Did you find something you liked amongst the selection of clothes sent up from the boutiques?’