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Will picked up his glass, heavy-bottomed. It’d make a good missile. Problem is he’d have to aim it at himself. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not that getting control of Avalon was going to be easy.
It went back to Aileen’s phone call from Mark Mason. Fat, lazy Gerry Ives, who they could wine, dine and manipulate, wasn’t coming. From that point on Will had been the inventor of his own disaster. It was supposed to be a quick match of hide and seek with a different journalist whose background was too obscure to clue them in to her ability. A quick assessment of risk and reward. Get in, get out. No harm, no foul.
But she’d been a surprising reward, and he’d taken every risk to be with her, and now he’d lost the main prize.
He looked at Pete. “And Darcy?”
“What do you care what happens to that bitch?”
Avalon was gone. Darcy had played him brilliantly at his own game. What did he care about her now? Tomorrow was what mattered. Regrouping so he could put Avalon back in his sights. Retreating so he could attack again.
He took a sip of the Lagavulin and savoured its smooth burn. “What’s the plan?”
“I really think you should get out, go to Hong Kong or Singapore or even Europe, Will. How long is it since you’ve taken a holiday? You could take one now,” said Aileen.
Will bit back the desire to shout at her. A holiday—a back seat, at the very moment he should be on the front foot. “Why?”
“The story is too hot. They’re going to chase you until they get more pictures, a comment, anything to keep it alive while it sells newspapers. If you disappear for a while it will get old quicker.”
“You want me to run?”
“We want you out of the firing line, that’s all,” said Pete.
“What if we give them a free shot instead?”
Pete looked from him to Aileen and back again. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“A press conference, a statement, a photo call. I’ll go play basketball with a bunch of Peony orphans and let them see I’m not such a monster.”
Pete laughed. “The very opposite of what you really want to do.”
“I really don’t want to be in this fix. I’ll do anything to get out of it.”
“Even let them all take your picture and write what they want.”
“If that’ll work.”
Pete looked at Aileen. She shook her head. “If I thought it would I’d say let’s do it, but they’re baying for your blood. You won’t get a fair hearing, and we’d keep the story pumped full of air.”
“So, what? I’m supposed to slink off to a remote island and get a tan?”
“Is that such a bad thing?” said Pete.
Will stood, walked around Pete’s home office. “Why can’t I go to the Julu Road house? I can work from there.”
“Will, we can’t be sure they don’t know where all your properties are. They have the apartment, they could just as easy have the mansion house, and the villa in Jinqiao. It’s only a matter of time till they figure out you’re here.”
He leant against the glass wall, his back to the river, to the office where the media pack were probably still hanging out waiting to rub his nose in his ego.
“What are you thinking?” said Pete.
He was thinking of the expression on Darcy’s face just before he leaned into her punch. She’d truly hated him. He heard the sound of beads pinging off glass, and saw the heat in her eyes. But she’d wanted him too, even in his anger and frustration, even while he scared her.
“I don’t want to go after Darcy personally. As an employee of the Herald, with the protection of the paper, fine. But if she quits, if they sack her, we call the dogs off her.”
Pete grunted his assent. It wouldn’t have been the way he’d play it.
“I’m not leaving China, but I’ll get out of the city.”
