She came back with the coffee a few moments later to find Johnny totally relaxed, lying back in his chair, propping his silver cowboy boots on Sam’s desk, those long legs of his tightly encased in his usual black leather jeans. Johnny lived his own legend; he was never seen except dressed as if for a photo opportunity and he made sure he was usually surrounded by adoring fans, all of them female, most of them half his age, as if the proximity of the young might rub off on him, give him the illusion of youth for a few more years.
Natalie put the strong black coffee down on the desk, at his elbow, and he gave her a lazy smile, brushing back that soft flop of blond hair in a way that made it fall back precisely into place a second later.
‘Thanks, honey. Did you enjoy my party? There were so many people there I didn’t get to dance with you, and I’d promised myself I would, but things got so hectic. It was one of the best parties I’ve ever had, I thought.’ There was a slight anxiety in his eyes, a question mark; under Johnny’s apparent carelessness there was always this uncertainty, the melancholy of a man whose whole life depended upon his looks, which he knew to be finite.
‘Everyone had a wonderful time, Johnny,’ Natalie quickly assured him. ‘I know I did; thank you for inviting me.’
‘My pleasure, sweetheart.’ Johnny’s hooded eyes wandered down over her trim figure approvingly, then his face changed and, swinging his feet down from Sam’s desk, he said, ‘Hey, I just remembered. You could have knocked me down with a feather when you proposed, Sam—and I’ll never forgive you for stealing the girl I had my eye on!’ Bending his long, slim body, he lightly kissed Natalie on the cheek. ‘I wish you every happiness, honey, and if he doesn’t make you happy, give me a buzz and I’ll come round and beat him up. Just say the word.’
Natalie slid a glance sideways at Sam, who was scowling. Let him explain to Johnny that there was no engagement! Why should she?
Cheerfully Johnny asked, ‘When’s the wedding? Better make it soon. The autumn schedules are pretty heavy—Sam’s going to be very busy once we hit August. Hey, can I be best man? After all, you got engaged at my party?’
Sam said coldly, ‘Thanks for the congratulations, but we aren’t engaged, Johnny. It was just a joke.’
Johnny’s jaw dropped. He looked into Sam’s face, frowning, then at Natalie. ‘Just a joke? Whose joke? Yours, Sam?’ He was watching Natalie intently, his eyes searching her face. ‘Did you know it was just a joke, honey?’
She was touched by the serious look in his face—Johnny might give the impression to most people that he was a playboy, flippant and shallow, but there was a serious side to him, hidden away.
‘You don’t honestly imagine I would ever consider marrying Sam?’ She lightly shrugged, pretending to laugh. ‘Of course I didn’t take him seriously. I know he’s not the marrying type, and even if he was, he’s not my type.’
Johnny roared with laughter.
Sam was not so amused. In fact, when she risked a brief, sideways look at him, his face was icily blank—a fact which did not escape Johnny, either.
‘This girl’s smart; she’s really got you figured out,’ Johnny told him with a certain enjoyment. There had always been an element of friendly competition between the two men where women were concerned. Johnny put his arm round Natalie’s waist. ‘So I’m still in there with a chance, sweetheart?’
She let his arm stay where he had put it, and smiled at him without answering.
Sam said curtly, ‘Have you noticed the time, Johnny? You should be in the studio getting your discs set up for the show by now, shouldn’t you? Panic bells will be ringing in the control room if you don’t show up soon.’
Instantly agitated, Johnny looked at his watch. ‘God, you’re right! I must run. See you both.’ Carrying his mug of black coffee in one hand, he rushed out, letting the office door slam shut. Sam walked round his desk and sat down, tapping his long fingers on the wooden surface.
Giving Natalie a long, hard stare, he said, ‘If you have any sense at all you won’t start dating Johnny. He isn’t your type, you know.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that!’ Natalie couldn’t agree more, in fact. She liked Johnny very much, but she wasn’t sexually attracted to him. All the same, she wasn’t having Sam dictating her private life. Give the man an inch and he was the type to take a mile—a real little office Napoleon. Either his mother had brought him up believing he was God’s gift to the female sex, or he had an over-abundance of testosterone.
‘Women have no judgement whatever where men are concerned!’ Sam informed her.
She looked at him drily. ‘Oh, I have a pretty shrewd idea what makes you tick.’
‘Do you indeed?’ he drawled, his mouth ironic. ‘I doubt it. But I wasn’t talking about myself. You know what I meant. Johnny Linklater is a great guy, and a buddy of mine, but I wouldn’t trust him with one of my sisters.’
Natalie smiled at that, believing him. She knew Sam worried about his two younger sisters; it was one of his more endearing qualities. She knew, too, that his mother hen attitude drove both of them mad. They had confided in her one day a few months back, asking her how they could get him to stop trying to run their lives for them. Natalie had advised them that their wisest course was not to tell Sam anything they thought he might not like, although she couldn’t help thinking that they should be more grateful for the care and concern Sam had always given them both.
Sam had been standing in for their dead father for years and he had got the habit, hadn’t yet realised that Jeanie and Marie had grown up. They were both over twenty now; they had a right to make their own decisions, choose their own boyfriends, live their own lives.
‘Just watch it with Linklater. The man’s chronically unfaithful and completely irresponsible,’ Sam said tersely.
‘I’ve been looking after myself since I was sixteen,’ said Natalie. ‘I can manage Johnny, don’t worry.’
Sam laughed angrily. ‘Famous last words! A lot of other women have thought they could manage Johnny, but they all failed. Oh, well, if you want to make a fool of yourself I can’t stop you—let’s get down to work.’ He reached for the audience research figures, his face set like concrete.
Natalie sighed—now he was going to be in a sulky mood all day, was he? Why were men so childish?
They spent half an hour going through the figures, then they moved on to skim through the mail; Sam dictated a few letters in reply, before starting on a memo to be sent to all the production offices on keeping costs down and using studios more economically and efficiently. It was one he sent out every few months. At first people were very careful, but slowly standards would slip and back would creep all the bad habits into which big organisations slid if nobody kept an eye on them.
He was halfway through dictating his memo when the phone rang and he picked it up. ‘Hello? Yes, speaking.’ He looked startled. ‘Oh, hello, Jeanie—anything wrong? What? No, I haven’t seen any of this morning’s papers.’ His voice shot up to a roar, making Natalie jump. ‘What? Said what?’ he yelled into the phone.
There was a silence while he listened, his face darkening, his eyes glittering with temper, then he said, ‘No, it isn’t! Of course not. She what? Oh, my God. Well, tell her it was all just a joke. No, you tell her. If I ring her she’ll keep asking me stupid questions and probing like a dentist... Well, I know she worries about me, she’s always telling me she does, but... No, I won’t ring her. I want you to do it. Are you listening, Jeanie? Hello? Jeanie?’
He slammed the phone down and stared at it as if it were a snake. ‘Damn. She hung up on me.’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Natalie.