Cora scorned central heating ever after. "I've been offered a lot of money to tell my story but I've turned it all down," she says.An Ulster mum-of-two who became the lover of former Cabinet minister Michael Portillo today breaks her silence on their extraordinary nine-year friendship.Rachel Johnston's world imploded when she was named as Michael Portillo's secret lover. Yes, I'm still fond of Michael but I don't feel good about becoming involved with a married man and I deeply regret it.Rachel adds: "I made a mistake. The unsolved murders still bring tears to Frank's eyes.He puts in a full week at his Oak Brook offices (not far from his brother's), but Frank finds the time to be active with the Chicago Crime Commission."What I consider a successful businessman is someone who has a profitable company and who can take care of their employees and their families," Frank explains in between bites of Brown's new pan pasta dish at one of his franchises. MICHAEL Portillo's lover claimed yesterday they had sex only once. In one line, a counter worker belts out, "Dogwithmustardonlysmallfry," as a group of construction workers scans the menu board. He has also begun sending out different political signals. Michael Portillo is a British journalist, broadcaster, former MP, and former cabinet minister for the ‘Conservative Party.’ He entered the ‘House of Commons’ in 1984, after winning the elections for the first time.
He's also an avid reader."I love my business. Like Tony Blair hand-writing his "contract with the nation", Portillo began to put on paper his definition of "new Toryism". My parents came round to break the news to me - my mum looked like a ghost."I started slowly trying to conquer my agoraphobia, setting up a self-help group and trying to venture outdoors on occasion," she explains. "I'd given Sammuel the benefit of the doubt and agreed to marry him, convinced that things would be better. And I have no interest in it." He's also still branching out. The contents of the interview were such a closely guarded secret in the Times's Wapping headquarters that the story was not discussed at the daily morning conference, and the political editor who wrote it up for the front page was not told about it until lunchtime. At this year's conference he will promote the cause of teachers with a high-profile speech on education. Shaun Woodward MP, who supported Kenneth Clarke for the leadership, describes Portillo as "mainstream, a centre-right Conservative rather than a right-wing Conservative".All his family and close friends - and some not so close - knew what had happened and accepted it. Portillo privately goes further than the Hague line and argues that the single currency should be ruled out on principle; some friends say he even buys the Thatcher argument that Britain should renegotiate its relationship with Brussels or pull out. "They said I would look like a liar, so I had to put my hands up and say yes. For three years, he, his wife, Joan, and their three children, Cheryl, 41, Jerry, 39, and Toni, 33, lived in the basement of Frank's first restaurant (namesake Henry Brown, a chicken farmer, opened the original store, but Frank was the one who built the chain).According to Charles Bernstein, chains editor for Restaurants and Institutions magazine, the Portillo brothers each have their own skills.The diverse atmospheres of the restaurants reflect the different natures of the brothers: Dick the ambitious, big-picture entrepreneur and Frank the family-style, community-focused restaurateur.He started in a tiny building with no sign and two miles from the nearest town. The couple had been separated for some months before his death and she did not attend his funeral, claiming that she "would not have been welcome."And she says that behind the brash, rather sordid headlines is a tale of a long and warm friendship between herself and the man she fondly refers to as 'Michael.'Asked about his encounter with Rachel, Portillo has only said: "I deny it. The brothers, who grew up with their sister on the West Side, were instilled with a strong work ethic by their Greek mother and Mexican father. The only potential problem was that the revelation would be less acceptable to old-fashioned Tories.But privately, the Hagueites know that if Michael Portillo does get back, Tory politics will be dominated from then on by speculation about a leadership challenge.