Private Lives by Tasmina Perry Page A

what’s happened.’
    ‘An actor client, a major star with a long-term partner, had a one-night stand a couple of weeks ago. Girl’s blackmailing him. She wants a truckload of money or else she’s going straight to the press.’
    ‘Has she got any evidence?’
    ‘Evidence? You talking man jam?’
    ‘Man jam?’ She winced.
    ‘You know, a DNA sample from a sexual encounter. Although to be honest, he can barely even remember the sex, he was so wasted.’
    Helen quickly scribbled ‘Other parties?’ If this actor had been drunk, there was always a chance other people could corroborate. A sloppy drunk on the pull didn’t usually care too much about covering his tracks.
    ‘I meant photos, video footage,’ she said.
    There was a pause. ‘There’s a photo on a mobile phone of them taken together in bed.’
    ‘Have you seen it?’
    ‘Not personally. But my client had it sent to him.’
    ‘I’ll need to see it asap.’
    She paused for a moment, her sharp mind looking at the angles, assessing the risks.
    ‘So you can get a gagging order, can’t you?’ Cohen asked. ‘The British laws play to our side here, don’t they?’
    ‘Yes, but there are other sorts of deal we could set up.’
    This was the stuff they didn’t teach you at law school: how to broker watertight six-figure pay-offs, or to put it another way, how to bury the bodies so deep no one would ever find them. She couldn’t count the number of secret confidentiality agreements she had drawn up to silence a mistress or a boyfriend. Of course there were other strategies too: arranging with an editor to kill off one story in return for a bigger one, an exclusive cover story about something else. Or you could even play hardball and hit the media where it hurt: in their budget. That was one of Larry’s favourite tricks. Threaten to cut off their advertising, or permanently restrict access to a roster of stars. ‘Play dirty,’ that was what he used to say. ‘It’s all the bastards understand.’
    She looked down at her notes. ‘So how much does she want?’
    ‘Five hundred thousand.’
    ‘Pounds or dollars?’
    ‘The chick is British, so I assume pounds. Although when she suggested it, my client panicked and told her to go fuck herself.’
    Half a million sterling was big money, which meant a big name. A very big name.
    ‘Who’s the client? The President?’ she said with a laugh.
    Eli didn’t laugh.
    ‘Sam Charles.’
    Helen smiled to herself. This was one of the perks of her job. She got to see beyond the curtain into the secret goings-on of Hollywood, see how people really behaved when the cameras stopped rolling. After all this time, she really shouldn’t have been surprised at anyone’s behaviour, but she hadn’t thought Sam Charles had that sort of ballsiness in him. But that was neither here nor there. The fact was that Sam Charles was one of the biggest stars in the world, especially as part of a Hollywood golden couple. Every newspaper and magazine in the world was going to want that story; no wonder this girl was asking so much.
    ‘I can see why you want to keep it under wraps,’ she said.
    ‘This girl says she’s going to go to the press if we don’t give her an answer in twenty-four hours.’
    ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Helen.
    She paused to collect her thoughts.
    ‘What’s the girl called?’
    ‘Katie.’
    ‘And when did Sam last speak to her?’
    ‘Maybe an hour ago.’
    Helen jotted her strategy on her notepad.
    ‘I want you to call Katie back. Stall her. Make out you need time to get the five hundred together.’
    ‘Should Sam call her?’
    ‘Definitely not. No more contact under any circumstances. Besides, she’ll believe it more if it comes from his manager.’
    ‘But we don’t want to pay her off.’
    ‘No, but it will buy us time. We don’t want her going to one of the kiss-and-tell publicists or directly to the press if we can help it. Where is Sam now? I’ll need to speak to him, get every