Page 37

I sigh, biting my lip to stifle a scream.

I know she’s my mam and she’s not the hordes of people on the internet, who always have something to say about my appearance, but it’s frustrating.

Before I did NuYu there were people picking apart my belly rolls, shouting in capital letters from their keyboards that I NEED TO PUT THE KEBABS DOWN and now?

They’re all saying the opposite. NO MAN WANTS TO BE WITH SKIN AND BONES.

It’s not just the randoms on the internet either, the press keep sticking their nose into my new nose!

Headlines keep asking HAS ANGELICA GONE TOO FAR WITH THE SURGERY AND WEIGHT LOSS?

Do they think I’ll never see this stuff?

That I don’t have to walk into my local newsagent and see my face plastered all over every magazine?

I always say hello to Sami, who runs our nearest corner shop, gather my bits and try to make a joke to him and he smiles, sympathetically, and says “I love my most famous customer, she’s beautiful, don’t listen to them.

” I don’t know why, but it’s his kindness that makes me feel the most humiliated by the headlines.

Mostly, I try to live by Verity’s advice and shrug it off, after all it’s my face, my body, I should be allowed to do what I want with my own skin and bones so I feel good, but every now and then, the hypocrisy of it all makes me want to scream.

But I won’t scream at Mam, I think she’d always be like this about me, after all, that’s what mams do, don’t they? They worry about their daughters.

But it makes me remember what Anika texted me the other day. Clearly the papers broadcasting my new revenge body, as they’re calling it, have reached the cruise ship, or at least the Dominican Republic where they’ve docked now.

Looking hot, babes. But how are you feeling?

I remember what you were like when Robbie broke up with you.

You can’t eat, drink or exercise your way out of heartbreak, Angel-face.

You’ve clearly been working out hard – but don’t forget you do it to be strong and step up – not to waste away!

Can’t wait to see you when I’m next home.

I’m taking you out for a pie and pint! XXX

I know she’s just looking out for me, but I want to tell her that I’m not too thin, it’s just the camera angles.

Also, I’ve been so busy recently, I’ve barely had time to eat, and I’ve found it’s easy enough if I just convince whoever I’m with that I ate at my last meeting or on my way over, so no one really checks up on me.

And it’s showing. Half the dresses in my wardrobe are baggy on me now.

The dress I’m wearing tonight is hot, hot pink, and I’m wearing it with black, wedge platform heels, teasing my hair into a bump-it, so my hair looks almost bigger than my body.

We’re hitting all of our fave bars, Velvet, Common, the lot, and I’m so grateful that the girls arranged for this to be a reunion, so I won’t have to deal with Sebastian’s sneering alone.

I can just down J?gers, dance on the booths, and wing-woman the girls so they can find someone to neck on with.

I know Madison’s main mission tonight is to make Marc as jealous as possible.

Unfortunately, because she was NDA’d to excess when she was with Chad Schmidt none of their fling has made the papers, and when she told Marc he laughed in her face and told her to stop being a fantasist. Which is awful for her considering that she told me that being with the real Chad Schmidt only made her miss her Poundland version even more.

Usually, I’d be joining her on her mission and trying to make Damon jealous, but for once it seems like I don’t even have to try!

The messages he’s been sending are increasingly attentive and bordering on desperate, the more my romance with Sebastian makes the papers.

And, if you’ll believe it, I’ve been IGNORING every single message from him.

He keeps asking if it’s real or not, and whether he actually is my boyfriend and I need him to keep feeling this jealous, I hope he’s sick with it.

But I also have never been able to lie to Damon, so I can’t reply because then his jealousy would evaporate in an instant, which I definitely don’t want to happen yet.

I have made it clear to Leo though, that it’s not real.

Despite everything, he’s my friend, I want him to see me as I really am.

Well, that and I was hoping he’d text back and tell me if he’s still single or if perfect-Molly-from-his-Instagram is more than just a flatmate.

When we arrive at the bars (Dad insisted on driving us into town) it immediately feels just like old times.

Even Samantha’s being nice to me, hugging me and telling me how amazing I look, without any of the usual barbed insults wrapped in niceties.

Damon isn’t here yet, but I’m insisting on being all over Sebastian, grabbing his bum and pulling him in for big snogs, as I need that to be the first thing Damon sees when he walks in.

“Why you being so…handsy?” Sebastian says, as I pull him in again. I run my hands over his abs. Polo clearly is a good workout if you actually know what you’re doing.

“The cameras, silly, we need to give them a good show.”

“And someone else, I reckon,” he whispers in my ear. How is it he always seems to have my number?

Sebastian has, annoyingly, gone for a wee when Damon does eventually walk in, so it’s the one moment when I’m standing on my own.

Madison and Marc are sitting in a corner together, furiously whisper-yelling in each other’s ears, Samantha’s gone to the bathroom and Layla’s being Layla and just bending the ear of one of the bouncers.

Damon comes up behind me, and whispers in my ear.

“Looking good, Angelica,” but I’m not expecting it and yelp out loud.

We hug, and then, it’s just like old times all over again.

This is the problem. As much as I know Damon is no good for me, when we’re together, we just work.

I can be in the loudest of nightclubs, music blaring, even foam pumping out onto the dance floor, and I’ll still feel like it’s just the pair of us, like we’re communicating just with our minds.

I can think something and I somehow know he’s on the same wavelength.

And now, I know I’m not meant to wonder, but I can’t help it: what does he see when he looks at me?

Because right now, in this very moment – after months and months of hard work and an operation that made me feel like my brains were about to fall out – I look like his dream girl.

My hair is blonde, my tan is that perfect Australian golden colour and my legs look like they stretch up to my armpits.

The girls used to say I was being paranoid, but I always thought that Damon felt like he was hotter than me and could do better.

But now, as I stand in the club where we first kissed, I am an entirely new person.

I’m not the girl who’d follow him home, even after watching him kiss three other girls, and give his number to plenty more.

I’m not the girl who would crawl into bed with him, drunkenly flipping between crying and wanting to kiss him, letting him climb on top just to pump away for a few half-hearted thrusts.

No, I’m hot, I’ve got money in my bank account and I’ve got a ‘boyfriend’ who’s heir to billions.

Damon should be in my rearview mirror. I’m doing everything I thought I wanted, so why doesn’t this feel good?

Why does it still feel like he’s the one in control?

“So, tell me,” he says, wrapping his arm around my waist, so as to whisper in my ear. “How did that horse feel between your legs?”

I want to say something flirty and disparaging, something to put him in his place.

But, all of a sudden, I find it impossible to get my words out.

It’s that familiar feeling, that intoxicating sense of having him so near, I want to just grab his face and kiss him, in front of all of these people, in front of the cameras that I know are hovering nearby, in front of Sebastian who I know would report me for breach of agreement.

It’s all too much to bear, and far too tempting.

I still don’t trust myself around this man.

So, I simply say: “I need the loo,” and run off.

In the toilet cubicle, I try to take deep breaths.

But someone’s clearly vommed in here, quite recently, so the deep breathing is nowhere near as soothing as it was in the yoga studios when I was on retreat.

So instead, I just put the lid down, hold my nose, and sit for a little while, trying to contemplate how on earth I can get through this night without falling prey to the temptation of Damon.

I know if I made a move he’d definitely respond.

But is that because he fancies me, or because he can’t stand Sebastian and would love to get one-over on him?

It’s then I hear the clatter of heels, and a sharp, but very loud sniiiffffffffffff .

I’m about to leave the cubicle when I hear my name.

“She honestly thinks she’s it now she’s lost all that weight.

” It’s Samantha. “But you can’t shed being an airhead, you know,” Samantha carries on to her unknown companion.

“She followed Damon around like a puppy, waiting for him while he screwed endless women in front of her, and now she thinks she can bleach her hair and everyone will forget she was spellbound by him. But they won’t.

My agent, Ben, says she’s got no career without him.

And as for Damon, he’s literally been advised by Ben to keep her sweet as the audience like them together so much.

It’s nowt to do with him actually fancying her.

I feel sorry for her, actually,” Samantha says.

“Some of us are working on long-term goals and she’s just flailing about, with no clue what she’s doing, getting taken advantage of by anything with a dick. ”

“But that Sebastian is quite hot…” the other voice ventures.

“That low-grade aristo?” There’s a pause and Samantha lowers her voice, so I have to shuffle closer to the door to hear. “It’s not even real. He loathes her. All that flirting and groping? It’s just for publicity.”

“Noooo.”

“Yes! Even more sad, right? I’d never do that. I’m tactical, discreet and exclusive when I choose who to date.”

I’m tempted to storm out and tell whoever it is Samantha is sniping to that her last three photo ops were all set-ups, but I don’t know if I can face blowing my cover and making it clear I just heard everything they said.

Particularly as I can’t exactly deny it, can I?

I did follow Damon around on television like a puppy dog, and my relationship with Sebastian is weird but I can’t deny I’m getting into where it’s going.

But, at the same time, I don’t believe he hates me and, while publicity is always in the forefront of Damon’s mind (like it is for Samantha) I refuse to believe that’s the only reason he likes me.

But how do you explain to a couple of bathroom bitches what it’s like to be stared at by those eyes?

What it’s like when Damon laughs at something I said, then looks at me in surprise, like he’s just discovering who I am for the first time?

It’s true that men can be full of bullshit but it’s also true that they can be afraid of their feelings, burying them deep inside.

“Anyway, we need to get back out there and work the room,” Samantha says, and I hear them clatter out, so I can finally escape.

Back out in the club, thankfully, Madison and Layla have lined up the shots for me, and Sebastian is waiting with a glass of fizz.

I slam down three shots, and gulp the prosecco despite Sebastian telling me to “steady on.”

“I’m not your horse,” I say to him. “And you’re in my world now. Get ready to cling on for dear life.”

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