I sent Lucy a message when I was boarding, begging her for a lift, but she clearly hasn’t received it. I stand shivering at the back of the arrivals hall of terminal two, gazing at the endless streams of passengers pouring out of the gate like water from a leaky faucet.
I need to go and find the taxicab stand, but my legs are like stone. My hangover kicked up a gear somewhere over the English Channel, and I’ve been exhausting myself with all the what-ifs again. Every so often, I’ll lose my balance, lurch sideways into a heavily laden luggage cart, and let the torrent of abuse wash over me. Everyone seems in such a hurry to live their lives. I just want to reverse mine.
There’s a piercing shriek behind me as another cart claims a victim. Glancing around, I see the familiar spiky blond tips of my best friend’s hair pointing in my direction.
“Fucking airports!” she screeches, barreling up to me. “They’re nothing but a steaming hub of pent-up hostility. Common courtesy is left behind in the short stay car parks and replaced with long delays, crap coffee, and those sodding trolleys! How are you, honey? How was your flight?” She throws her arms around my neck but her grin fades when she steps back to take a better look at me. “Shit. What happened? You’re all skin and bone. Some evil crewmember has put my best friend on a hot wash on repeat.”
“Not just any crewmember,” I rasp, my face crumbling, and I dissolve like pulp into her arms.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Are you sure you’re warm enough? I can switch on the central heating if you like.”
Lucy’s been like this ever since I returned home six days ago, fussing and fretting over me like I’m an old woman. I can’t stop shaking, and it’s driving her nuts. I’m tucked up on the couch under four duvets, two hot water bottles, and a One Direction beach towel.
She can’t seem to settle to anything, either. She keeps cleaning out the fruit bowl and arranging the coasters into shapes. All I want to do is drift away into a dreamless sleep where I’ll never have to think about Jake Dalton again. But I daren’t close my eyes. Not with my nightmares lying in wait for me. Since Jake and I imploded, they’re worse than ever.
I watch Lucy knock the TV remote onto the floor for the third time in a row.
“Aren’t you needed at work, or something?”
“Heartbreak emergency,” she says briskly.
“Well, don’t get fired on my account.”
She glances up at me with a sly grin on her face. “Tom wouldn’t dare, not if he doesn’t want his wife to find out what we got up to backstage at Coldplay last Saturday.”
“Lucy,” I wail. “I thought you were going to end all that?”
She’s been messing around with her editor for months. I wish she’d go and find someone new, preferably a man without a wedding ring, and not a Hollywood media tycoon, either. That’s just asking for trouble.
“I will when I get bored.”
“We can’t both be out of a job at the same time. We’re already the black sheep of our respective families.”
“Rather a poor black sheep than a rich white cliché. Speaking of which, your mother’s called four times already this morning.”
“Please, no!” I howl, covering my face with a cushion.
“Don’t worry, I told her you’d caught the flu from travelling in economy, you’re highly contagious, and you are not to be disturbed. Less money equals more germs. It’s just the sort of nonsense she believes in.”
“Thank you.” I smile at Lucy gratefully before switching to a mock scowl. “And stop sleeping with your boss.”
“I hardly think you’re one to talk,” she says pointedly.
“He wasn’t my boss, and I’m not sleeping with him anymore. And at least he wasn’t married.”
“No, just two-timing you with some ditzy Hollywood fembot. Has he called you?”
“Allegedly. And no.”
“Emailed?”
I shake my head. Sad but true fact alert—my iPhone has been glued to my hand for the last few days on the off chance that he might.
“Then he’s a total bastard and not worth thinking about.”
Lucy sits down next to me on the sofa and pushes my stringy, unwashed hair out of my eyes. She knows all about our stalemate. She knows it’s an impossible thing that Jake has asked of me. I refuse to discuss my father with anyone. It’s always been that way.
I pull the cushion back over my face and groan. “Isn’t there a drug on the market that erases the last few months of your life?”
“It’s called vodka.” She picks up the latest edition of Hello! from the coffee table and flicks through the pages. “She’s got a beaky nose, you know. And her eyes are far too close together.”
“Who?”
“Cassie Lee. She’s a moose.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes you do.” Lucy starts fiddling with her phone next. “Shit. I have to go into the office. Another royal’s got herself knocked up, and I need to report it. Why don’t you come into London with me? It’ll make a change from gazing at TV programs sponsored by luminous orange car dealers.”
“No thanks. I’ll have to wash my hair, and that’ll mean burning my fingers on your evil tongs again. Don’t you think I’ve taken enough abuse this week?”
“Then read a book, paint your nails. Just do something.”
“I can’t.”
Books don’t hold the same magic for me anymore. For some reason, they remind me of Jake. Make that, everything reminds me of Jake.
I wanted reality when I boarded that plane all those months ago. I was begging for fireworks. I craved a life beyond my own walls. I shot for the stars…
And got totally grounded within eight weeks.
No, lower than grounded.
I’m at less than zero and sinking fast.
Chapter Forty
Lucy’s tireless dedication to getting my ass off the couch has me grumbling all the way to the bathroom and then into my closet to get dressed.
She’s right, though. I need to yank myself back into the land of the living…starting today. I haven’t left the apartment in a week, and I’ve started Googling how to cure potential bedsores.
We part ways at Waterloo station, and twenty minutes later I’m bounding up the steps of Piccadilly Circus Tube. Since I left for Morocco, Central London has traded a fractious winter for the lightness and euphoria of early summer. With the sunshine on my face, my broken heart feels more like jagged splinters than lung-puncturing assaults. Surely, it’s too glorious a day for another corkscrew twist in my rollercoaster ride of a life…
And then my mother calls.
“Darling!” she cries. “Are you better?”
“Much better,” I lie, dashing across the pedestrian crossing and making a silent bet with myself. The quicker I walk, the quicker this phone call will be over.
“We all like Jake, Charlotte. He’s such a catch. Courtney and I were only discussing that yesterday.”
What a surprise. My mother has become best friends with the plastic PA from L.A. I’m practically sprinting down Haymarket now, scattering dirty gray pigeons like a proverbial cat. All the businessmen and jobbing actors walking past are giving me a wide berth. “I told you before, Mom. Jake and I are not together.”
Not anymore.
“Why’s that, Charlotte? He couldn’t take his eyes off you at the charity gala.”
“That’s because we were having an argument. It’s more satisfying to fire angry words at each other and watch them detonate on impact.”
“Before that, silly. When he was trying to extract himself from those pop stars. I know when a man’s interested, darling. He’s a little older than I was expecting, but he’s very…” The sentence is left hanging, but we both know what she’s implying. Jake is well-connected and filthy rich—all the things instrumental to my mother�
�s happiness.
Oh, shut up, Mom, I silently rage at her, dragging my thoughts back to that charity night. I seem to remember him rather enjoying their company, but the events that followed suggest otherwise.
“What exotic location is he whisking you away to next?”
“Um…nowhere. My contract’s expired,” I say bleakly. In more ways than one. I’m nearly at Hungerford Bridge. I can see the London Eye winking at me in the distance.
“Oh, I see.” I can sense my mother digesting this information and weeding out the negatives. “Well, you must come for dinner. Courtney and Harold are coming to stay. Harold has the most delightful British nephew. You simply must meet him. He’s only twenty-seven, but he’s just inherited his father’s dry cleaning business. A hundred stores nationwide, would you believe?”
What about my business? I want to scream at her. I fell hard twice in Morocco. Once for a man who broke my soul, and the other for an industry that I’m hoping will fix it. But my mother’s on a roll. She’s now happily spelling out to me the many benefits that would come from dating a dry cleaning tycoon.
“And he has a house in Weybridge, darling. On that fancy estate where all the Beatles used to live.”
My mind starts to drift. I’m formulating a plan, a “save Charlie” kind of plan—one that’s going to resurrect me from the ashes of Jake Dalton. After this call ends, I’m going straight over to the TV studios on the South Bank and requesting a trainee job application form. If I can’t have Jake, I’ll have the next best thing.
“Will you at least think about it, darling? A coffee perhaps? A quick macchiato to break the ice, and then dinner the following week?”
“Fine, Mom. Whatever.”
“Marvelous!”
Satisfied that she’s pinned me down to a date with Harold’s family success story, my mother makes her excuses and hangs up.
I’ve reached the Royal Festival Hall, but I’m like a salmon leaping upstream against the tides of people coming the other way. The South Bank has always been my favorite part of London. It’s teeming with energy and there’s a carnival atmosphere radiating out from the litany of cafés and restaurants and their colorful awnings. The River Thames is running alongside me, urging me on, enveloping me with its chilly, stale odor. Big Ben is behind me, guarding my back. St Paul’s and the skyline of London are stretched out before me like some modern-day Canaletto painting.
Today will be a good day, I tell myself. Today is the day I take my life back.
As I approach the great gray edifice of Queen Elizabeth Hall, I spy a familiar sight. A hub of activity has closed off huge sections of the walkway, and a tangle of trailing camera cables are jutting out from the group like an electrical umbilical cord. An army of baseball caps and North Face jackets has descended on the South Bank, and they’re all darting in and out of their black-clad security detail like border collies in an agility class.
I stop to rubberneck like everyone else, and hear a familiar shout.
“Oh, my gawd, will you please have these people moved on? This place is so claustrophobic. They’re taking up my oxygen. I can smell their fish and chips!”
There’s a ripple of excitement as Cassie Lee struts into view wearing a full-length black puffa. A glitzy gold cocktail dress is peeking out through the open gap in her jacket and her blond hair is piled on top of her head in some fancy updo. Her endless legs elicit many admiring murmurs from the men. Even the leaves in the trees seem to approve as they swish and sway in time to the catcalls.
I’m not so easily impressed. There’s nothing pretty underneath all that makeup. I duck my head and keep on walking until I’m shoved out of the way by an over-enthusiastic autograph hunter. He sends me hurtling into the broad, muscular back of the tallest North Face prince, which, in turn, sends his mocha latte flying.
“What the fuck?” he yells, rounding on me furiously.
“I’m so sorry!”
He glares down at me and we both get the shock of our lives. “Shit, Charlie, is that you?”
Is it? I’m not so sure anymore.
I don’t know who’s more stunned—me, to see Brad Wilson this far from L.A., or him by my flattened, waiflike appearance.
“Excuse me, madam, you can’t stand there,” says an officious-sounding security guard, shooing me away from Brad.
“No, Danny, it’s okay, she’s with me.”
I am?
Brad puts a possessive arm around my shoulders and I want to bury my head into his Thor-like chest and weep. He seems to sense my despair because I hear him calling out for “five” before whisking me off in the direction of the nearest coffee chain.
He slams a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and whipped cream down on the table in front of me. “I told you not to get too close to him, Charlie. I fucking warned you.”
One of my tiny pink marshmallows is plummeting down the outside of the mug in a suicidal trail of chocolate goo.
“How did you guess?” I ask quietly.
“Saw it happening a mile off.” Brad whips off his black baseball cap and pins me with his indigo eyes. His scruffy blond hair cascades around his face and he slicks it back in one easy movement. “What did that son of a bitch do?”
“The works. Turns out we’re not very compatible.”
“Well, I figured that out for myself. Not many women are good enough for narcissistic assholes. Fuck ’em and forget ’em, that’s more his style.” Brad studies my face for a moment. “Gee, he really hurt you, didn’t he?”
“I like to think we hurt each other.”
Brad doesn’t look convinced. “You sure about that? Jake’s impenetrable. You, on the other hand, look freaking terrible.”
“No, I don’t!” I’m just about surviving a breakup with the hottest man on the planet. To be simultaneously insulted by his runner-up is really pushing it. “Anyway, I’ve had the flu. I’ve been in bed all week.”
Brad smirks.
“I have!” I glare at him until the smirk breaks into a grin and I find myself holding my breath. I can see Jake’s features in his jawline and cheekbones. How did I not notice that before? I take a sip of my hot chocolate, but the remaining marshmallows have melted together to form a mushy clump that’s impossible to breach. I put the mug back down on the table. “Why didn’t you tell me Jake was your brother?”
Brad shrugs. “I thought you knew.”
“Jake chose not to share that particular detail with me. Along with countless others.”
“He was like that with Cassie, too. Drove her nuts.”
“Are they back together?”
Brad shrugs. “Probably. Those two have history. Did you know she was my girl first? We dated for a year before I walked in on her and Jake.”
My hand flies out in shock and catches the mug in front of me. Torrents of hot chocolate start spilling all over the table. “Oh, God,” I wail, diving for the napkins. “Did you ever suspect them?”
“Nope. Never. That’s the thing about Jake. He’s so eaten up on the inside that he can’t see the damage he—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Wilson?” A member of Brad’s North Face army has popped up next to our table. He’s fidgeting nervously with his hands, as though Brad’s an unpredictable animal who is liable to chew his head off and spit out his brains at any moment. “We’re ready whenever you are, sir.”
Brad dismisses him with a flick of his wrist. “I gotta run. It was good seeing you.” He stands to leave and then sits back down again. “Listen, honey, I know this is too soon after everything that’s happened, but the way I see it, you’ve gotta eat. I know a great place in Chelsea. I can pour the wine and you can bitch about Jake. What d’ya say?”
Brad’s right. It’s far too soon. But my ego is so bruised and he’s gazing at me so expectantly that it’s impossible to resist.
I find myself accepting b
efore I have a chance to say no.
Chapter Forty-One
“You’re going on a what?”
Lucy is standing in the doorway of our living room with her hands on her hips. She really has the whole outraged friend thing down to a fine art these days.
“A date,” I say, stabbing my lips with gloss in front of the hallway mirror. I knew she was going to kick off about this.
“A date with whom?”
“Jake’s half-brother,” I venture, half sheepish half defiant.
“You’re unbelievable! And you don’t sound nearly as weirded out by that as you should.”
My cell beeps. “Sorry, gotta go. My cab’s downstairs.” I grab my bag and bolt for the door before she has a chance to stop me.
“Charlie, wait!”
“I’ll fill you in on everything later, I promise!”
In the cab, Brad messages me the name of the restaurant. I chuck my cell back into my bag and hope it’s not too upscale. The only swanky places I like are six-star Moroccan hotels that come with a naked Jake Dalton as standard.
Don’t go there, Charlie. Don’t go there.
I’m wearing the only decent dress I have in my closet. It’s Lucy’s black bodycon from Morocco. I managed to fix the busted zip with the kitchen scissors this afternoon, and I’m determined to ignore both history and semantics tonight.
“Can I help you, madam?” A glassy-eyed, glossy-coiffured maître d’ pounces on me as soon as I creep inside the front door. The restaurant is chic but not nauseatingly so—a buzzing boutique hot spot where a cherry-red bougainvillea and pallid-pink climbing rose have exploded over the front porch in a vapor of color.
“She’s with me.”
Brad materializes to my left, and he’s all aftershave and dynamism. He looks incredible, as usual, like a reformed bad boy who’s kept that nuance of danger and rebellion about him. He’s swapped the black puffa for a dark blue three-piece, and his blond hair has been neatly brushed back off his face. Every woman in the vicinity is pivoting in his direction.
Hot Nights in Morocco Page 18