Those Angstrom Men!. (14 page)

Daisy instructed her staff to copy his strategies exactly.

They achieved the same results.

Since David had Britain’s major airline tied up, her company used an international carrier, with the same wonderful results swelling her bottom line.

David wasn’t stupid either. He watched Daisy emulate his efforts and smiled. He was paying her back for that damned
Eligible Bachelor
list.

He knew someone as competitive, as focused on being number one, would hate that he took her own product and showed her how it should be done! David was very proud of himself and his team.

Dear Daisy:

  I see you followed my strategies with the Logic magazines to breathe some life into your other puzzle books.

Anytime you’d like some advice, just ask. My consulting fee is very reasonable.

I did see a quote of yours, in an interview about your concept for Wonder Woman. You were asked if Cosmopolitan was your inspiration. You replied that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I’m flattered.

Yours,

David

Daisy snorted, and told Sarah to plan
four
fashion layouts around David Angstrom.

When David received that request, he knew he’d
really got to Daisy and smiled.

He’d never seen a picture of Daisy,
never bothered to Google her, and in his mind she was a hard-nosed, forty-something spinster with hair pulled back into an unflattering bun, low heels, glasses, no makeup, a woman determined to succeed in a successful family.

So, she expected him not to cooperate, did she? He had picked up a copy of
Wonder Women
and seen the picture of Sarah Vantage, the Fashion Editor and she was
hot
.

David
called Sarah directly and booked the first shoot for the first week in January. He also asked her out to dinner two weeks hence, the first evening both of them were free.

Sarah was ecstatic and immediately began to plan her own wardrobe, starting with her dinner date.

Daisy was puzzled, and a little miffed.

Had David Angstrom accepted just to annoy her? Was he throwing down the gauntlet?

No, he’d already thrown down the gauntlet when he taunted her about his success with the magazines he’d
bought from her.

She entered the date of that dinner onto her calendar.

That evening, David had a football match, and Tom was at the pub when the team went for a beer.

“Hey, Tom, haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Hi, David, no, I’ve been off on an assignment in Spain. But I’m back in Britain now for the next year. Eh...I...eh...signed a contract with
Wonder Women
for a yearlong gig.”

“
Wonder Women
?”

“Yeah, David and I need to talk to you about it.”

“Why?”

“Because my assignment is to follow you around and take your picture frequently, doing manly things like scoring goals and sailing and skiing and dating.
I was going to turn the job down, and then I thought, “No, David’s my friend, and he’d rather have a mate with him that some paparazzi creep stalking him. You can always tell me to disappear when you don’t want to be photographed, Davey boy.”

“That Feature’s Editor must be hard up for copy,” smiled David.
Yes, Tom would be preferable to the paparazzi who had hounded Ian for two years
.

“Dennis? This didn’t come from Dennis. No, the Managing Editor herself
ordered them to do this.”

“Daisy Fowler?”

“The same. What a knockout, eh?”

“Knockout?”

“Don’t you think she’s a knockout?”

“I’ve never seen her. Exchanged correspondence, but never seen her.”

“She’s not in the press much, never socializes, just works. I think I have a couple of pictures on my camera, David. I took one or two planning to have them on file if I ever get an assignment to cover successful business women...here...” Tom dug his camera out, pulled up a picture and passed it over with the picture of one of the most striking blondes David could ever remember seeing.

“How old is she? For some reason, I thought she was in her forties.”

“I think she’s about twenty nine.”

“Married?”

“To her job. She runs Fowler Publishing
and
she’s he Managing Editor of that magazine. She loves being Managing Editor, and boy, does she control what goes on the pages...Works long hours.”

“All work and no play
makes Daisy a dull girl...” smiled David.

“She’s focused on her work and that’s about it,” agreed Tom. “Still, she’s made a success of it, push
ed it up the charts to Number One in Britain now.”

“Is it now?”

“Yeah, and they say it’s this
Eligible Bachelor
thing that helped drive it up there.”

David scowled. So his picture in that shrew’s magazine was going to make her even more successful and no doubt more
..more
shrewish
.

David had a wicked, wicked thought.

His eyes narrowed, and then he gave a roar of laughter.

“I wonder what she’d do if she found herself on one of those lists, Tom?
”

Tom frowned. “Oh, I don’t think she’d like it very much, David.”

“
I know it drove Ian bananas. I expect it to drive me bananas.”

“Well, since she doesn’t have a men’s magazine that would feature an Eligible, what would you call her, Bachelorette is what they’d say in America,
she’s never likely to know, is she?”

“Tom, is this contract you signed exclusive?”

“No, but the terms make it impossible to be far from you.”

“Hmmm.
Well, I’m going to give you a contract myself. I’ll pay the same as them, and all I want you to do is to take Daisy Fowler’s picture every chance you get for the next year.”

Tom saw the light.
He grinned.

“You don’t own a men’s magazine do you, David?”

“As a matter of fact we do, three of them. And I’m thinking of one of Daisy’s favourite platitudes.”

“Which is?”

“
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...”

Tom started to laugh.

“Tom, my contract swears you to secrecy until I say you can tell her.”

“Fine, David. This is going to be good.
Which magazine?”

“Our most successful, with the largest circulation.
British Men
.”

“I read that. It’s Britain’s answer to
Esquire
.”

“That’s what my brother Ian told my dad and
I when he wanted to start it five years ago.

“
Now I’m going to
sincerely flatter
Daisy Fowler with it, by running a twelve month series focusing on women.”

Tom laughed. “Oh, boy, oh boy...she’s going to be steaming mad...”

“In fact,
I’ve just thought up the perfect name for it, “
Eligible British Beauties
” and I think we’ll do the same to her as she did to my brother, we’ll start the series with
her
picture without warning her!

“
And
we’ll run a monthly article saying what she’s been up to, just as she is going to do to me.

“
Perhaps we’ll invite her to be part of a fashion shoot or two. You can be the photographer.”

“You need a shot of her in a bathing suit, David,” warned Tom.

David’s brow creased for a moment. “Yeah, we do...chat up one of the women at the magazine the next time you’re in there, Tom, and see what ideas you can come up with. Maybe somebody has some holiday photos of her they’d sell us, confidentiality guaranteed.”

That Sunday, David had dinner with Ian and his wife
, Maggie.

“Ever wish you could turn the tables on Daisy Fowler,
Ian?” he asked over leg of pork, perfectly roasted.

“Oh, yes. That was two years of hell,” muttered Ian. “I’d love to get her in the same position.”

“Well, you know our magazine,
British Men
?”

Light dawned behind Ian’s eyes.

“What are we going to call the series?” he grinned.

“
Eligible British Beauties
,” smirked his brother. “She really deserves this. She plans to run a monthly column telling the world what I did the month before. She’s secretly hired a photographer to take pictures of me all year. She’s also got her Fashion Editor planning several fashion shoots throughout the year featuring me. I’m going to have more attention barraging at me than you did!”

“No! How did you find out?”

“The photographer she hired is a mate of mine. He was going to refuse the job, but then realized I’d rather have him than the paparazzi.”

Ian’s wife, Maggie, giggled. “Too bad your mate isn’t a woman.”

“Why, Maggie mine?” asked her husband.

“Well, if she was, I could take her to my fitness club one morning. Daisy Fowler is a member there as well. She swims fifty laps every morning.”

“In a bathing suit?” asked David eagerly.

“No, in a space suit,” replied his sister-in-law sarcastically.

“Maggie, darling, my very favourite sister-in-law in the whole world, if we find a woman photographer...”

“Since I know how Ian suffered, the answer is yes,”
smiled Maggie.

David whipped out his mobile. “Hello, Tom, do you know any good women photographers?”

“Hiya, David. Yes, my girlfriend as a matter of fact, Elizabeth Atkinson.”

“Elizabeth Atkinson, eh?
I want to engage her for a week, to accompany my sister-in-law to her health club, and take a few pictures of a certain blonde beauty we were discussing in her swim suit.”

Tom laughed. “I’ll text you Elizabeth’s number...”

David immediate texted a lucrative offer to Elizabeth Atkinson. She accepted with alacrity.

David, Ian and Maggie sat grinning at each other.

“Elizabeth Atkinson?” smiled Maggie. “I know her. She does all the portraits of the business people I feature in my column at
Britain’s Best
. She’s an amazing photographer.”

“Is she good looking as well?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Good, we’ll ask her if she’d like to be part of our series.”

“You know, she just might agree.”

“She might?” asked David, surprised that anybody would agree to such an exploitive situation.

“She might, if I were to point out how jealous it might make her boyfriend. She’s been waiting for three years now for him to pop the question.”

Darius Fletcher, the Editor of
British Men
, thought that David’s idea was brilliance personified, and when he heard the first victim was to be Daisy Fowler, he was even more pleased.

Darius had been to Cambridge with Daisy and he remembered how she’d never agree to go out with him...even for coffee.

Women scorned have nothing on men scorned, when the man in question is a journalist with a very wounded giant ego.

Daisy, you see, was the only woman ever to refuse Darius when he asked her out
.

Darius wrote the article accompanying Daisy’s picture, dripping wet, climbing out of the pool, so like a Hollywood starlet rising from the waves.

The three men hadn’t gone overboard. One picture of Daisy in that low cut tank suit with the high cut legs would do, one of her flying through the water on her fifty laps along with a couple of pictures of her at work from Tom’s camera. Well, that would have to do. They didn’t have any other pictures to run. They did a spread of her magazines, fan-like on a black background. That was all they had.

British Men is is proud to present the first of our series of Eligible British Beauties...Daisy Fowler.

Daisy is five foot six inches tall, and weighs ...no, readers, we are gentlemen at British Men, and a gentleman never reveals a lady’s weight, but we will tell you she doesn’t have an ounce of fat on that lithe body of hers
and she has all the right curves, as you will see when you study this picture. She swims fifty laps every morning, and it shows, doesn’t it?

Daisy also runs a publishing
empire, as the Managing Director of the hugely successful Fowler Publications.  She’s also the Managing Editor of Wonder Women. Quite an achievement at the age of 29, isn’t it?

Daisy lives in Chelsea
in a charming Georgian townhouse all by herself, not even a kitten to keep her warm at night. She hasn’t got a boyfriend at the moment, Gentlemen, but I’m sure you’ll look after that, won’t you?