Page 35 of The Sun Sister

‘Good job,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘It looked amazing on camera.’

‘Great. Now, let’s get out of here,’ I murmured under my breath as I turned back to the wardrobe lady and smiled at her sweetly. ‘Thanks for your help today.’

‘It was a pleasure, Electra. See you at seven a.m. tomorrow,’ she said in her strongly accented English.

As I arrived back at the Copacabana Palace, there was a cluster of autograph hunters gathered by the entrance. They shouted at me as I got out of the limo, and I smiled for their cameras and signed their photos and autograph books.

Once inside, I almost ran to the elevator in my eagerness to get up to my suite.

‘Would you like me to come with you?’ Mariam asked me.

‘No, I’m gonna take a cold shower and get some rest. It was a long day today.’

‘What about your swim?’ she asked me as the elevator doors opened.

‘Maybe later,’ I said as I stepped inside and pressed the button for the top floor. ‘I’ll call you,’ I added as the doors closed behind me.

Back in my suite, I headed for my holdall and poured myself a vodka. My hands were visibly shaking as I put the glass to my lips – I hadn’t dared bring any chemical supplies with me on public aviation and had relied on there being someone on the shoot I knew who could share his or her supply. But this shoot was clean (so far as I knew anyway) and I didn’t know anyone well enough to trust them. Yet I was in South America, where drug trafficking probably brought in more money than any other business. If the worst came to the worst, I thought, I’d go pay a visit to the concierge. This was Brazil after all, and I was sure they’d be able to help.

Just as I was stepping into the shower, the room telephone rang. I left it, thinking that there wasn’t a person on earth I was interested in talking to.

Standing under the water, I let out a torrent of expletives that Ma, who’d drilled it into us sisters never to swear, would have shuddered at. Still, Mitch deserved every one of them. Grabbing a towel and padding back into the living room, I saw the red light indicating a message winking on my phone. I walked over, picked up the receiver and pressed the button to listen to the message, which was probably from housekeeping asking me what time I wanted my turn-down service.

Instead, I heard the comforting tones of my sister Maia’s voice.

‘Hi, Electra, sorry I missed you. Floriano spotted a photo in a newspaper this morning of you arriving at the Copacabana Palace. I don’t know how long you’re here for, but obviously I’d love to see you. I only live around the corner from the hotel, and my number is...’

I grabbed the pencil by the phone and wrote the number down on the notepad provided. Then I contemplated the evening ahead. There was dinner at some flash restaurant for the cast and crew, which I had said I’d attend, but could easily get out of by feigning tiredness. Maia had said she lived close by, so maybe I should skip the dinner, call my eldest sister and go meet her new family.

The truth was, I didn’t want to doeither. In fact, I didn’t want to do anything except get off my face and forget I even breathed.

‘Christ, I need some coke!’ I shouted, thinking that the one downside of my new and brilliant PA was the fact she was so squeaky clean. At least Amy had been on hand if I’d needed to score, being partial to the stuff herself. Mariam would probably fall to the floor in a dead faint if I even asked her to order me a vodka tonic.

The bell to my suite rang but I ignored it. Thirty seconds later, it rang again.

‘Who is it?’ I called.

‘It is me, Joaquim,’ said a deep resonant voice through the door.

‘Joaquim?’Did I know a Joaquim?

Then the penny dropped, as Pa would say; he was the new hot male model-about-town who was appearing in the commercial with me. The director had mentioned he’d flown in today, ready for tomorrow’s filming.

‘Hang on, I’m coming.’

I grabbed my robe and put it on, then went to open the door.

‘Olá, Electra.’

He smiled lazily at me, his thick black curls falling around a face that was already almost as famous as mine for its beauty. My eyes sized up the rest of him and I gave him a smile.

‘Well, hi there.’

‘It is an honour to meet you at last. Do I disturb you?’

‘No, come in.’ I opened the door wider.

‘I just think to myself that, if we are to share a kiss on set tomorrow, I should introduce myself personally to you first.’