Last Resort Read Online Free PDF Page A

send her into exile, when, to be frankly immodest about it, her rising popularity as an interviewer was just what Starke needed and, unless she'd totally misread everything, was projecting her towards the position Sylvia had always intended her to occupy. So to banish her now didn't make any sense. It was like nurturing a prize-winning rose then snipping off the bud before it had a chance to blossom.
    Getting up from her chair Penny wandered back to the 23
    fire and stacked a couple more logs. As she watched the flames flare up, she bit down hard on the anger that was growing inside her. Her diary was full for weeks ahead, requests were coming in all the time for her to interview celebrities and statesmen, as well as offers to talk from the normally publicity shy, so why the hell would she want to go to France? She'd almost rather take a job on the Sunday Sport than leave London now. The trouble was, though, she doubted she had it in her to throw everything back in Sylvia's face by turning her down when Sylvia had done so much for her? (
    With a quick sigh of impatience she turned to answer the phone. Everything was silent upstairs and, knowing Declan would just let it ring rather than break his muse, I she snatched up the receiver and barked,
    "Hello!"
    I
    Ten? Is that you?"
    "<
    "Mally?"
    Penny cried, breaking instantly into a smile. "
    "Where the hell are you?"
    "London!"
    Mally yelled ecstatically.
    "We just got in. I called your flat. Peter told me where you were."
    "How was the tour?"
    Penny laughed.
    "I read about it. Seems you were'
    Tan-fuckin'-tastic!"
    Mally cut in, in a broad Northern accent.
    "But what the hell are you doing in Portsmouth? We're only here for the weekend."
    "Then get on a train and come down,"
    Penny cried. There's plenty of room. Declan won't mind."
    "What, all of us?"
    Mally gasped excitedly.
    "D'you hear that, you pissheads?"
    she called over her shoulder.
    "She's inviting us down there."
    Penny laughed at the bawdy cheer of approval from Mally's band.
    "Yes, all of you/ she confirmed.
    "Get on the next train."
    "Right on, sistuh,"
    Mally boomed.
    "Be there as soon as we can/ and after jotting down the address she rang off.
    Still laughing, Penny replaced the receiver and strolled back to her computer.
    Mally and her rock band were old
    24
    friends from college days whose rise to fame was beginning to take on meteoric proportions. They'd already had a number one hit and the next was currently zooming up the charts, while their recent tour of the States, from what she had read, had been a total sellout. It would be great to see Mally and the boys, but, damn it, how was she going to get rid of Richmond before they turned up so that she and Declan could talk? She'd told him on the phone about France, but though he hadn't passed any comment at the time he had seemed as keen to discuss it as she'd expected him to be.
    Smiling to herself, she sat back down and rested her chin on her hand. The entire world knew how possessive Declan was of her - his public outbursts of jealousy had on one momentous occasion resulted in him challenging a hapless young hack to pistols at dawn and, on another, to emptying a plate of squid over an MP's head, in order to, as he'd put it,
    "cool his filthy ardour', because he'd been gazing a touch too lustfully into Penny's eyes. There were countless other incidents too, most of which had found their way into one diary column or another and kept the better part of London, if not the nation, highly entertained with the hot-blooded romance that, at the outset, no one had believed would last.
    But it had and Penny smiled to herself as she recalled how only last weekend, which they had spent at his studio in London, he had left a message on his answerphone announcing to the world that he couldn't come to the phone because he was making love to his woman. This was so typically Declan that it had simply made her laugh when she'd found out, and, besides, it was the truth: they'd