Page 24

Chapter Thirteen

“I was so high, baby, honestly, I had no idea what I was saying or doing…”

I’m in Damon’s hotel room in London. No one knows I’m in Damon’s hotel room.

Madison and Layla think that I’ve gone to get a spray tan, I’ve even arrived here in my most stained joggers and a white vest-top, leaving our room with no make-up on but then frantically applying licks of mascara while in the lift up here.

We’re all down here for a charity event, despite there being no season two, as we’re still signed up to our current contracts that say we have to do promotional work for the show.

I’m just glad to have the gig. I need to figure out what I’m doing and fast, and there will apparently be a bunch of bigwigs from all different reality TV companies at this event, so if I can just get to them before Samantha, charm their pants off (not literally, of course) then everything will work out fine.

Or, at least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

I’m trying to enter into a state of manifestation.

Even if it feels more like delusion right now.

Before I got the train I said to Mam, “I’m off to meet the new producers of my new hit TV show,” as I read that if you speak and act as though it’s already happened, then the universe does some rejigging, rewards you for your positivity and bam, everything you wished for arrives.

But then Mam asked too many questions about what the show would be and was so excited about it all I had to confess it hasn’t happened yet and it burst my bubble.

Hopefully the universe will understand I wasn’t being negative, just trying to please my mam.

Something the universe has surely done itself at one point or another.

Then Madison and Layla made me promise on the way here that, no matter how drunk I get, I’m not to sleep with Damon.

I pinky-promised them and everything. Technically I’ve not broken that yet, all I’ve done is agree to come up and hear what he has to say.

And I turned him down twice before doing so! See Leo, I do have willpower!

“Who was it I heard in the background when I called?” I ask, expecting to hear one of his well-worn excuses – it was the window cleaner/the takeaway driver/a faulty line…But instead he says:

“Just some meaningless fling, but that’s OK, isn’t it? We said we could still sleep with other people, as long as it didn’t turn into anything serious.”

“Did we?” Did we? I’m pretty certain we didn’t. After the telly awards he was sending me all those loved-up messages and I wish I could pull them out right now, but after losing my SIM card in the packing boxes and having to get a new one, all my old messages have been lost.

“Yeah, do you not remember? It was at the after party, just after you showed Ben what’s for. Good on you, he’s such a dick, you’re so strong Angelica, stronger than me…”

He trails off and he’s watching me from the big bed, and he does look like he means it.

There’s a certain look Damon gets in his eyes, when he just softens.

All his macho bullshit has been stripped away and I can see him for who he really is: a vulnerable, sweet, funny guy…

who also happens to be head-over-heels in love with me.

The thing is, I still don’t remember saying anything about us shagging other people.

But then I was absolutely wasted at that party, we all were.

I have a fuzzy recollection of pulling the duvets from our bedrooms, through to the huge corner sofa, and watching the sun rise over Big Ben, wrapped up warm and safe in Damon’s arms. I remember feeling happy, thinking of us on the red carpet and how good we looked together, I remember him kissing my head as I tucked up in his arms and how he murmured, “You’re the one for me, you really are.

” But I don’t remember this conversation, agreeing to sleeping with other people.

I’ve been beating myself up about me screwing Leo without being 100% clear whether Damon and I were on a break (although I think him screaming “We’re not even a couple” was pretty damn clear now I think about it) – and all this time he’s been thinking we each had a free pass to fuck anyone we wanted as long as we didn’t catch feelings.

“It’s how all the big celebrity couples do it, you know, open relationships?” he’s saying, mentioning a few names. I would definitely have remembered this, I may often get very, very drunk and forget certain things, but never celebrity gossip.

“So don’t let some quick fuck with a girl get in the way of you and me, she’s a nobody, I can’t even remember her name, I wasn’t even looking at her face.

But she definitely wasn’t as fit as you, look at you, you’re in manky joggers and you’re still the hottest girl in this hotel.

” He taps the bed. “Come here, sit beside me. I hate you being so far away from me.”

When I arrived, I’d refused to go near him on the bed, knowing full well what could come of being close to that man and his intoxicating scent (and, I’m sure, a penis that has magical powers, I sometimes feel like it’s whispering to me, Angelica, you know you want me ) but now, it’s more tempting.

I do also hate standing up for long periods.

It’s like I’m in trouble and have been called in to see a teacher.

“Fine,” I say, arms crossed and heading over.

“But nothing is happening here, no shagging, OK? I’m just sitting down to talk and no, I don’t remember agreeing to letting you shag other girls. ”

I sit down, and damn, I really am close enough to smell him.

He’s also wearing a pair of grey jogging bottoms, the sort that manage to be both baggy and tight all at the same time.

I try not to glance at his crotch, as I know what I’ll see.

I sneak one look – is that a semi? No! Stop it Angelica!

– and focus his forehead instead, surely the least sexy feature of a man, concentrating on staying strong.

“Besides, it’s not fair to have huge relationship conversations when we’re both smashed. ”

He laughs then, but in a charmed way. “ All our relationship conversations have been when we’re smashed.”

“At least then there were cameras to record what you were saying, so I could check if you were being a liar again!”

“It’s really hard for me, girls throw themselves at me, every single night,” he says and I roll my eyes.

“Oh sure, that sounds really hard, Damon.”

“It is,” his eyes are wide now, trained directly on mine. “As it’s all so shallow, none of the conversations I have with these girls is a patch on how we are, what we talk about. Most of them are so dull, banging on about horoscopes or their make-up or whatever.”

“I like horoscopes and make-up,” I say. “I don’t know what you’re getting at? I’m meant to be flattered that you spend time with boring girls and still choose to shag them, knowing it will hurt me?”

“With you, everything you say is funny. Everything . I feel like you really know me, that you see who I really am. It’s not shallow…it’s… deep. I’ve just been chasing all these highs, since we got out the house. I don’t want to but then they’re there and the new is just so tempting, you know?”

It’s impossible but is that scent of his getting stronger?

I feel a little woozy with it all. The hotel bed is so soft beneath me and I know he said some other stuff…

but the ‘everything’ of it all is swimming around my head.

I fling myself back, suddenly exhausted, laying on my back and staring up at the spotlights above me.

Did they just dim? The light in here feels softer, more golden and much less harsh than it was when I came in, angry and demanding that Damon’s explanation “better be good.”

“I don’t know, Damon. I sometimes think, with you, it’ll be new, new, new until you die. I don’t want that. I want—”

“You want someone that will be by your side, until you die. Someone solid, dependable, I get it. But I know you, Angelica. You also want someone to have a laugh with.” He’s lying beside me now, the back of our hands just touching.

It’s what I told him in the house, how I wanted a relationship like the one my mam and dad had.

I’m not sure if they even showed it in the edit in the end, Damon and I, spooned in bed, talking about the things we wanted from our future.

The light had felt similar that day, the afternoon sun streaming through the curtains – we’d snuck off for a 3p.m. nap and cuddle, while the others did whatever weird task we’d been assigned to do, our source of entertainment for the day.

“You remember?”

“Course I remember.”

He’s moved his hand closer to mine and is now, very gently, very tingly, stroking my inner wrist. I didn’t know that was a weak spot for me but I don’t want him to stop.

He doesn’t and I shift my body just a little closer.

This still isn’t breaking my pinky-promise, we’re just lying in bed beside one another, and then he grabs my wrist, moves it across to feel that what was once a semi, is now a huge erection.

Even his cock is familiar to me. Fuck me , I think.

And it’s as if he’s read my mind. Within seconds, he’s on top of me, both of our jogging bottoms are down and the soft, gentle, erotic moment is over.

He’s inside of me in an instant, my legs scissored wide and I’m crying out at the feeling of taking him, and how good he feels inside of me.

But then he begins to pound, faster and faster and it’s all too quick to appreciate it any more.

In the house I could pretend to myself I liked it, because it was fast and sweaty and naughty trying to do the deed before we got discovered, but today it’s just too fast, too sweaty. He hasn’t even taken his socks off.