Cherry Bomb: Forbidden Bad Boys

by Clara Leigh

  Jace shows his disagreement with that opinion with a quick slash of his head. “Darling, he’s exactly the sort to dump you by text. If the man’s on his way here, it’s because he has something up his sleeve, and it won’t be anything pleasant.”

  That possibility is burning way in my brain while I call Flo. She starts sobbing the moment she hears my voice. Actually, she’s so throaty, I suspect she’s already cried a bunch and having to talk about it all just sets her off anew.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to her, knowing all the heartfelt apologies in the world won’t be enough to staunch the wound I’ve given her. I’ve just destroyed her future. That I’ve also destroyed mine is irrelevant. I knew the risks and took them anyway. Flo never really believed getting Dare involved in our lives was a sensible way of unravelling ourselves from our contracts. She was all for holding tight and waiting to see what the verdict was on the next season of the Caine Chronicles first.

  If only I possessed her patience.

  And too bad that when I went hunting for a fall guy, I fell for one instead.

  “Don’t,” she bubbles. “I could have tried to stop you, but I didn’t. I pushed you towards him.”

  I’m not sure that’s exactly true.

  “And now I’ve wrecked it, and you’re going to hate me.”

  “You haven’t wrecked anything, Flo. It’s all been me. I’ll never hate you.”

  “You will,” she says with all the dejection of someone who has hit rock bottom and can’t ever envisage an escape route. “Once you see it.”

  “I’ve seen it already. Unless you’re going to tell me you’re the one who filmed it and handed it to the press, none of this is your fault.”

  “I’m not talking about your thing with Dare.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it in confusion. “Then what thing are we talking about?”

  I hear her snuffling, and can picture her drying off her mascara-streaked face with her sleeve. “They made me do an interview.”

  They, requires no explanation. I know exactly who she means, the combined might of Steve Dandy, Warren West and our diabolical mother.

  “They’ve already shown it on the Chinchilla Channel, and I guess it’s probably on YouTube by now.” She gives another loud sigh. “Aw, shit, I’m sorry, Flicka. I should have said no, but things got crazy really fast. First I knew of any of this was when Steve Dandy banged me out of bed and waved a bunch of legal documents in my face. The recording of you and Dare had only clocked five thousand views at that point. It’s probably on over a million by now.”

  “One point three and rising.” Not that the number of viewers makes a difference.

  “The point is, Dandy went through everything point by point, all the clauses we’d broken and what they’d be looking to claim from us as a result. It’s bad, Flicka. It’s really bad. Worse than we ever thought. But then he said there were ways of mitigating some of the charges if we were willing to co-operate to minimize the damage.”

  Charges! I bet nothing formal has even been discussed with their lawyers yet. At the moment it’s all bluster and scare tactics – scare tactics that have worked. I can hear Flo quaking in her boots.

  “Flick, I didn’t feel there was a choice. We’re cornered, and you weren’t around. I did try to reach you, several times over.”

  “I know. My phone’s been missing. I’ve only just got it back.”

  “It doesn’t matter why I couldn’t get hold of you. The point is that you weren’t available. So, it was up to me. I had to say sorry for you and make it clear that Chinchilla didn’t in any way endorse or approve of your behaviour.”

  “I don’t give a damn what Chinchilla think of my actions. I’m entitled to a life and my autonomy. And what the hell can you say to make amends for me anyway? ‘Hey world, I’m sorry my sister screwed everyone’s favourite bad boy and proved she’s human after all. I hope you can see past this and realise she’s still really very sweet, and also, she’s completely sorry she failed to live up to the ludicrous standards of purity expected of her.’”

  I hope she didn’t say any of that. I’m not sorry at all about being human and wanting to make out with a hot guy. The only thing I’m genuinely sorry about is the fact Flo has been dragged into my mess.

  “It’s wasn’t me apologising for you,” she screeches, in a way that makes my ears ring. “I was you saying that stuff. They made me pretend.”

  Suddenly I understand why she’s so insistently bleating “sorry” at me at every few seconds. Not only are Chinchilla going to ensure we’re both stony broke for the rest of eternity, they’ve just done their best to destroy our sisterly bond along with my relationship with Dare.

  The bastards are trying to isolate me.

  “Please tell me you didn’t say getting involved with him was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  “It was on the autocue. I just read out what came up. I’m sorry, Flicka. I really am. But you can talk to him and explain. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Of course he will.”

  Like hell he will.

  “I need to go now, Flo.”

  “Right. Okay. You’re coming home soon though.”

  “Of course,” I reassure her. “As soon as I can. I’ll have to clear it with Jason first of course.”

  “He’ll understand. I’m sure he’ll let you.”

  “’spect so. Bye now. Bye.”

  I cut her off while she’s still making another apology. No amount of sorry is going to fix things now. I need an action plan involving decent lawyers, and I need to go to London, or wherever the hell Dare is right now, and explain this all to him face to face. I try his phone, but as I suspect, he doesn’t answer. His phone is set to voicemail, and I’ve more sense than to leave a message that could be accessed by a third party at this stage. The press may have been hauled over the coals for the phone hacking scandal, but that doesn’t mean they’ve genuinely stopped being so cruddy. I’m wary about texting him for the same reason. In any case, simple black and white can’t express everything I need to communicate.

  Lorne fails to answer when I try his number too.

  Seems I’m not only up shit creak without a paddle. These are shark-infested waters, and I’ve forgotten how to swim.

  Nevertheless, I’ve had time to pack a small bag by the time Jace returns. He looks even sourer than he did twenty minutes ago. “Are you ready to leave?”

  I lift the bag onto my shoulder and follow him to the car. His car. Not a taxi. Still, it’s only once we’re strapped in and he’s turned on the ignition that I explain that I’m not going to his bolt hole in the West Country. “I need to go to London to see Dare.”

  “Sure you do,” he agrees. “But does he want to see you?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know, but I need to make sure he doesn’t believe all the lies.” I know how badly he’s going to be hurting right now. Dare might only have touched on the basics of the situation when he explained about the Borrower to me, but I’ve read the accounts and opinion pieces about Emilia’s rise and fall from fame. Also, I can extrapolate and empathise.

  I explain about the interview to Jace, but he already knows. “It’s why I came to find you. It’s not just the press you’re going to have to worry about. It’s the Wilde fans too. They’re going to hate you for having had him, and they’re going to hate you even more for suggesting he wasn’t worth it.”

  “Even if I didn’t say it?”

  “Your doppelgänger did. Even if you stand up and refute it, I doubt it’ll make a difference.”

  “It might to Dare.”

  “Maybe, and maybe not.”

  “Do you know where he is? Is he at his flat?”

  “At his parent’s place, and no, I’m not taking you there.”

  “Then can we go to your place and wait?”

  He pulls right out the grounds of Mortham Abbey and heads towards the main road that’ll take us east. “I don’t like this,
Flicka. I’m supposed to be directing a film, not being the sidekick in a road movie.”

  “You want me and Dare to be happy though, don’t you?”

  He flicks his gaze ever so briefly towards me, before returning his attention to the road. “Maybe. Mostly I’d just like the pair of you on my set doing what you’re being paid to do without outside interference making that near impossible.” He uses his thumb to slide his thick rimmed glasses up his nose. “You do know he’s had more women than I’ve had hot dinners.”

  “I know.”

  “Then, are you sure he’s worth it? I get you straining at the leash and wanting to get out of your Chinchilla contract, but doing it all for a man who goes through more women than underpants…”

  “Sure,” I reply emphatically. We travel in silence for a few minutes. “Not that he does go through women like that.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Well maybe that’s just because he hadn’t found the right one.”

  “And I suppose you’re her.”

  I lift my shoulders and shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I want to discover that for myself. If it doesn’t work out long term, I want Dare and me to be the ones deciding that. Chinchilla have dictated enough of my life; they’re not getting the final say on this too.”

  Jace grunts, and shakes his head a little. “I hope he’s worth the cost.”

  “You always think so,” I reply. “You’re always casting him.”

  “As a villain, yes. Not the guy who wins the day.”

  -33-

  Dare Wilde

  I’m face down in a heap of frilly pillows in the second guest room at my parent’s place when the door opens yet again. The family are taking turns to come in here and berate me, apparently they don’t get that I came in here to hide. The only person left who hasn’t told me I’m a scumbag and that I need to get my act together is the Borrower, so I brace myself ready to hear what my baby girl has to say to me. At least I deserve this particular dressing down. No child deserves to have their princess party wrecked by a bunch of trolls.

  There’s no noise after the door clicks shut. She’s probably creeping over to me on tiptoes. I keep still, pretending I’m asleep, anticipating her finger poking my bicep or maybe my ribs. I wish I knew how to make it better for her, but the day has already been spoiled. Mum salvaged what she could of the event, but the kids were all stirred up, and most of their parents arrived not long after the press in order to take them home. No one wants their six-year-old in the frame when the news channels are shilling “sex scandal” to the masses.

  “That’s a beautiful shot of your arse.”

  I sit. It’s not the Borrower sneaking around beside my bed at all, but Lorne. I’ve no idea when he got here, but I’m damned pleased to see him, even if his presence merely proves how shitty things are. I roll over onto my back and he shows me the photo enlargement on his tablet.

  “A lot of gay guys are gonna be choking it to that image tonight.”

  “Fuck off.” I appreciate his efforts to make light of things, but I’m not ready to laugh at events yet. It’s all too close, too raw and personal.

  Lorne sits beside me, making the mattress springs yelp. “It’s just a story, Dare. Give it a week and they’ll be reporting on your new relationship with the next model hoping to make a name for herself or else some actress everyone had forgotten about until you gave her a pearl necklace on the Night Tube.”

  “The press aren’t the problem.” I’m used to the stories and the intrusion. I hate them for spoiling Arrietty’s party, but I realise they’re also part of the ecosystem that I live in.

  “I know.” Lorne leans over and squeezes my shoulder. “It’s about Flicka, and the interview. What a fucking bitch, eh? Shows how deceptive appearances can be.”

  “Don’t,” I warn him. I’ve been over our relationship and what she said from every bloody angle imaginable, and as a result I’m feeling raw as fuck inside, but I can’t disconnect myself enough from what I thought we had to listen to other people hurl insults at her yet. I thought we had something worth fighting for. I know it was still in its infancy, but I’ve also had enough relationships to know when something is real. The fire between us was definitely that.

  “She played you, Dare. She told you this was her plan to get herself off the hook with Chinchilla from the start.”

  I don’t need Lorne to remind me of that fact.

  “Not like this. I don’t think she planned this.”

  “That’s because you still have your love goggles on.” He reaches out as if to pluck a pair of shades from my face, but when I bat his arm away, he tumbles onto the eiderdown to stretch out beside me instead. “Look, I realise it sucks to learn you’re not her man in a million –or a hundred million – but eventually you’re going to have to admit that you got taken in.”

  “Did I? Is that what you actually believe?”

  “Does it matter what I think. It’s what the evidence is saying. She bailed on your relationship within hours of that tape being shared without exchanging a word with you. Then dumped you in a televised interview.” He smooths his hand through his hair until his fingers hit the pillow. “What’s to say she wasn’t the one who leaked the footage in the first place?”

  “The hundred million you just insinuated that Chinchilla are now going after her for.”

  His brow furrows as he considers. “Suppose you may have a point.”

  I’ve been up here for several hours thinking about this. “She only wanted to be photographed sharing a cab with me, not bodily fluids. My money is on Beauford being behind the leak. Little toad was all riled up after our bollocking from Jace. I bet he saw us and an opportunity to prove to Jace that for all his knuckle-wrapping we were still doing what the hell we pleased right under his nose.”

  “You got any evidence for that?”

  “I don’t, but, it makes more sense than your insinuation that it was Flicka.”

  “I guess.”

  Years of friendship has taught us when it’s best to let a subject drop. I’m not even sure it matters who is responsible for the leak. The upset is due to Flicka’s reaction. Hence, Lorne and I both end up staring at the drearily perfect ceiling. There are no cracks or undulations. There’s not even a smear of paint around the light fixture. It’s too fucking perfect, exactly the way Chinchilla wanted Flicka to be. But nobody can be that blameless and blemish free. In any case, what’s so damn wrong about two consenting adults fucking?

  “A hundred mill’s a lot,” Lorne muses, with his pinched fingers pressed to his lips so that his words are muffled. “I wouldn’t pay much above fifty quid for you.”

  “I wasn’t planning a happily ever after with you.”

  “You don’t need to plan it, we’re already living it.” He elbows me in the ribs. “And don’t pretend that’s what you were seeking with her.”

  “I told her about the Borrower, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, well—” He rolls on to his side to face me. “—we all do crazy things occasionally.”

  I close my eyes to the Dulux Brilliant White Soft Sheen shit above me. “It felt real, Lorne. For the first time in fucking forever, it felt like it actually meant something and it was worth holding onto. It wasn’t just mechanics. My heart was in on it.”

  “Thought you kept that fucker in a bank vault somewhere.”

  “I take it out occasionally to give it a polish and so that I remember how to give a shit.”

  Off the bed Lorne hops. He paces a near lap of the room before he returns to the base of the bed and squints at me. “Mate, let’s analyse this, shall we? The only reason you went after her is because everyone said you had to keep your hands off. You’re a sucker for craving what you can’t have, and let’s face it, there’s precious little you can’t have, so of course you’ve been walking around all starry-eyed. That doesn’t make her your soul mate. It just makes you a sad bastard who needs to grow up and learn when to keep his cock
in his pants.”

  “Thanks. Your pep talk is really helping.”

  “Good. Now get your arse of that bed and let’s go out and do something worthy of your reputation.”

  “I’m not going out.”

  “Fine, we’ll go home and get slaughtered. I’ll drive. You can try and convince me that you’re never going to enjoy fucking someone as much as you fucked her ever again. Then afterwards, you can talk to Monty about what you’re going to tell Jace. Don’t you still have half a film to make with her?”

  I shake my head. “Not happening. Not now. I don’t even want to see her, let alone fake make out with her.”

  “Maybe she’ll pull out first.”

  Somehow I don’t see that happening. If Chinchilla really are going after her for everything she’s got, then she’s going to want to cling to her one chance of forging some kind of career for herself outside of their clutches.

  We’re halfway home, stuck in traffic and listening to the wiper blades swish across the windscreen, half mesmerised by the glow of the tail-lights ahead, when Lorne says, “They probably didn’t give her a choice about the interview.”

  I clap my hand down upon the dashboard. “There’s always a choice.”

  “It doesn’t always feel that way though, does it?”

  I grumble quietly to myself as I chew over Lorne’s words. I want to believe that she was somehow forced in front of a camera, and that her words don’t actually reflect the truth, but I can’t get past the bit where she said I was the biggest fucking mistake of her life and that she’d undo it all in a heartbeat if that were possible.

  She’d undo us. Undo our friendship, press rewind on me finally filling her in the way she’d begged me to do. I know that all we’ve really shared is a few moments, some fancy fucks and a couple of confidences, but still the loss of it makes me sick to my gills. I let myself believe it would turn into more, that once we were finished filming, Chinchilla would actually cut her loose and she’d choose to be with me. I don’t know what I’m more upset about, the fact I’ve proved myself a right great effing fool or that it’s over before it even really began.