Chapter Sixteen
The producer cleared his throat. ‘You see. The fact of the matter is. Well…’ Tony was stumbling for words and put his coffee cup on the table. Dear lord but this was a mess. ‘Well, I don’t know quite how to say this, but the thing is, we think the pair of you might be married.’
Paddy and Hal stared at him in disbelief.
‘Did you say ‘married’?’
‘What the hell!?’
Tony Harper sighed inwardly. It was too much to hope that both parties would be thrilled or amused, but he wasn’t expecting such fury.
‘I know this is unexpected but please let me explain. It seems there was some confusion between the local church authorities and the German film crew and they accidentally hired a genuine priest. The priest seemed to be a rather confused gentleman and thought the wedding was genuine…’
‘How could he possibly think that?’ snapped Hal. ‘The director was jumping around all the time yelling cut!’
‘Well yes but it seems that he’d had a few weddings recently where the couple have had it filmed as well and he just thought it was along those lines. Plus he may be suffering a bit from memory problems. Then you both signed the register, which it turns out was the actual civil register, not a film prop and so you are in fact, we believe, legally married.’ He paused. Maybe now they would laugh and be all forgiving?
‘I’m sorry but this is bloody ridiculous. I’m due to get married. Everything is booked!’
Paddy looked appalled. He was that close to being married when he had slept with her? She wanted to burst into tears.
‘Sod his marriage, what about my reputation?’
Hal coughed. Obviously, it was difficult discussing his upcoming wedding in the presence of the woman he had slept with, but he was incensed she had tossed aside his dilemma so arrogantly. It’s not like news of this leaking out would harm her. ‘What reputation. You’re a model?’
Paddy stared at him in amazement; he was sitting there looking like some jumped-up Lord Snooty in his shiny suit, acting like he was the only one to have a problem. ‘What the hell do you mean by that? I work bloody hard at remaining private. I stay out of the tabloids, I don’t do celebrity guest appearances, I don’t do interviews and I don’t have a ‘reputation’. Now I’ve got married to a total stranger on a film shoot. It will get plastered all across the magazines. The fact you are about to actually get married makes it even worse.’
Honestly, she could scream. This was appalling.
Hal shrugged; inwardly he was rather offended by her apparent horror. ‘I don’t see the problem.’ He laughed. ‘Am I that awful?’
‘What! Why?! You…’ Paddy could no longer contain herself and jumped up and started pointing at Tony. ‘What the hell is the meaning of this? If a word of this escapes I will sue your production company out of business!’
Tony groaned inwardly. So much for them seeing the funny side. His company was up for a round of capital investments; a scandal like this could blow them out of the water for at least a quarter, and in his business, a quarter was enough time to sink beneath the waves. Clearly the groom needed to be pacified but Holly McDonald was a much bigger problem. She was well loved both by the public and within the industry. She was always first to help in any charity gigs, she never pulled rank, she never stabbed anyone in the back and Tony was certain that if she called for help amongst her colleagues, she would be a very sympathetic figure. Models knew the power of maintaining their persona, whatever it was, that they had created. Making her look like someone who would cheat with someone else’s fiancé could destroy her future bookings. She wasn’t making a false threat when she threatened to sue him and they both knew she would almost certainly win. He was also aware of her recent change in status. She hadn’t brought it up so neither would he but she now had a lot of power behind her. Before he could try to reassure her, Henry broke in again.
‘Look, Holly or Paddy or whatever her name is, is obviously getting a bit carried away, but seriously this does need resolving. I know we can’t stop people talking…’
Tony groaned, carried away? nice attempt to diffuse the situation.
He tried to step in but sure enough, Holly was now even more incensed.
‘Carried away? Now who’s being ridiculous? And of course we can stop people talking. Every person on set will have signed a non-disclosure agreement.’ Whipping back from Hal she turned to Tony. ‘How many know about this marriage? Bloody hell, what’s Duncan going to say?’ Pulling herself out of her reverie she snapped again at Tony, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’
Hal was a bit startled by her appalled reaction. If he hadn’t been in such a bind himself he might have found this funny. As it was this lovely girl, or what he had thought was a lovely girl, was enraged and each time he spoke, she seemed to be getting worse. He tried again.
‘Look, Tony, she does have a point. Like I said, I’m getting married soon and I rather think my fiancée would object if she discovered I was already married.’ He smiled at Paddy, trying to show her he was on her side in this mess and almost recoiled from the look of fury she gave him.
Tony, realising he was about to have a full-on fight on his hands jumped in to intervene.
‘Please. We are hiring lawyers at the moment to establish if this marriage is legally binding. And if it is, we have a few options. We could appeal the validity of the marriage but that could take a few months, we could request a divorce, which would take a year or we could have it annulled which we just might be able to do in a few weeks. Obviously if you are actually married, we will put all our resources behind it. So what is your preference?’
‘Annulled!’ Two voices finally united.
Tony sighed and waved at Holly to take her seat again. Honestly, he had never met her before but everything he had heard about her hadn’t prepared him for this reaction. He had thought Ferguson was going to be the problem. And indeed, when he had entered the offices, Tony had pegged him immediately as someone who was used to getting his own way and having the world revolve around him. For a man who had just discovered his wedding might be cancelled he seemed remarkably relaxed. Once Holly was settled, he continued.
‘Excellent, an annulment should be fairly easy to obtain as the marriage wasn’t actually consummated.’
There was a pause and a silence as both parties picked up their coffee cups. ‘It wasn’t consummated, was it?’
‘No. Of course not!’
‘As if!’
‘Right,’ Tony paused, smirking inwardly. So much for Holly’s golden girl reputation. He should have known it was a front, models and actresses were all the same, jumping in and out of any one’s bed to get ahead. However, she was right, she could sue him to hell and back and now he saw that she probably would. A leak like this could destroy her, especially if people discovered that she had been sleeping around. The repercussions would affect his company as well though. It also wasn’t worth him losing his reputation as a safe pair of hands for people to invest in.
‘Leave it with me. If you can give me your lawyers’ details, we will be in touch with them today and get the ball rolling.’
***
As they left the building, Hal held back as Paddy stormed out of the building. He knew Bianca was probably waiting for him and he was reluctant for the two women to meet. Fixing his tie he looked in the mirror and was surprised to see how concerned he looked. The past hour had been bruising. He had totally misread Paddy. He had thought she was a total poppet; the last time he saw her he thought she was genuinely upset but after the performance in there, he wasn’t sure who she was at all. Apart from being a ball-busting career girl. That much was clear. God, he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made him feel so insignificant. The two of them smirking over him being a part-time housekeeper, who the hell did they think they were anyway? And more importantly who the hell was Duncan? And why the hell did he care? Hal knew he shouldn’t be surprised that Paddy or Holly or whatever she was called had a man in her life but it made him feel deeply unsettled.
As he walked into the atrium, Bianca jumped up to join him. She’d just seen some of the cast of Strictly Wonderful go by as well as some TV hosts and Holly McDonald. Hal nodded glumly and, when asked, told her that the company just needed him to sign some filming waivers. There was no way he could tell her he was actually married; it would devastate her. For a second, Bianca seemed crestfallen that it wasn’t a job offer but then suggested they go for lunch at a new place she had just read about. Hal just wanted to head back home, but instead he gave her a small squeeze and hailed a cab. How in the name of God could he be married?
Bianca continued to prattle on. She seemed particularly high-spirited today, but Hal was lost in thought, nodding occasionally in agreement and then looking out of the window. The traffic was typically snarled up and they sat stationary whilst the lights went from green to red to green again, with no one moving. As he sat watching the street outside, his heart sped up as he saw Paddy walking along the pavement, carrying a large Burger King bag. He didn’t think models ate junk food but then she stopped by the same homeless chap he and Bianca had passed earlier that day, and sat down. It was impossible to tell what was being said but both Paddy and the man seemed to be laughing about something.
Paddy offered some chips to the dog before handing the rest of the bag to him. She just sipped from a cup whilst he started to eat. Clearly, as she sat on the floor drinking and chatting with him she seemed utterly unfazed by his appearance. And in fact, as Hal looked at him the chap seemed to come alive. Had he been asked to describe him earlier, Hal was embarrassed to admit he wouldn’t have been able to suggest more than white, dirty and middle-aged. Now Hal could see that he was actually quite young. He had a broad face, and a pleasant smile. His laugh looked genuine and he gestured wildly as he told Paddy some story. She was laughing in return waving her cup around and feeding more chips to the dog. As the taxi pulled away Hal craned his body to look back and received a sharp nudge.
‘Henry, I don’t think you’ve been listening to a word I said. The caterer has suggested we should alter the menu to include caviar on the canapes. He said they will be perfect. What do you think?’
‘I suppose Burger King is out of the question?’
Bianca frowned and changed the subject. Recently, Henry had been increasingly distracted and Bianca knew when not to rock the boat. She was so close to landing her golden goose; he hadn’t even mentioned a pre-nup. All she needed to do was play the next few weeks as carefully as possible.
The cab dropped them just beyond the restaurant and there was a small crowd waiting at a pelican crossing. Hal was happy to wait for them to cross, but Bianca was fed up with his lack of attention and tried to push her way through. Maybe if she could get him some food and drink inside him, he might be less distracted. A glass of wine, a nice piece of steak, the old adage of winning a man’s heart through his stomach came to mind. A teenager stood in her way and was about to say something to her but Bianca wasn’t in the mood. Scowling at her, she shoved her out of the way. The girl stumbled and Hal threw his hand out to steady her. She was tiny, maybe only five foot and Bianca had shoved her towards the traffic without so much as a thought for her safety. The girl looked up at him and then looked back at Bianca.
‘You need to ditch her, mate. That is not a good life choice.’
The way she spoke Hal realised she was probably older than she looked and not a child at all, but still no one deserved to be pushed into the traffic. Laughing, she shook her head and slipped away into the crowd as he looked thoughtfully after Bianca.
Everything seemed to be shifting around him and he felt uncomfortable. He was not making good life choices at all. He couldn’t get the image of Paddy and that young beggar out of his mind. What the hell was wrong with him? He had always prided himself on doing the right thing, of taking care of people, of being accountable, but that was a lie. That very morning he had stepped over a human being in need. He had summed him up and discarded him, forgetting him within minutes. At the time he could see nothing wrong with his behaviour, but a few hours later as he watched Paddy, he knew that what she was doing was the correct thing and he felt distinctly ashamed of himself. Now he was following in the wake of a woman who was shoving strangers out of her way not caring if they fell. Something was very wrong with his life.