The Bad Boy Wants Me(50)
He picks up a pair of chopsticks. ‘She’s a formidable PR agent. She can make the public think black is white and white is you.’
I let my finger trace the edge of the table. ‘Cash, have you ever, I mean, have you …um.’
He uses his chopsticks to pick up a piece of chicken. ‘What? Spit it out.’
‘You know, have you ever, well, slept with Octavia?’
He gives me a narrowed look. ‘Fuck, Tori. What do you think I am? The woman’s my manager.’
‘It’s just the way she talks to you. Like she owns you, or has some kind of hold on you.’
He looks at me incredulously. ‘So you think I fucked her?’
‘I’m just asking.’
‘Well, the answer to your original question is a big, fat never. She’s the last person you have to worry or be jealous about. She has nothing I want.’
I nod, relieved but trying not to show it. ‘I’m not jealous or anything like that,’ I deny primly.
He grins suddenly. ‘You’re not jealous? You’re totally jealous.’
‘I’m not.’
‘So why all the questions then?’ he challenges.
I shrug. ‘I just wanted to know where I fit into the scheme of things.’
He puts his chopsticks down, moves back on the seat, then curls his hand around my wrists and tugs me so I fall into his lap. Slightly breathless I look up at his face. ‘Where you fit in? You fit in because I kind of like fucking my sister’s little PA.’
I slide my hand underneath his shirt and lightly scratch the skin of his bare chest. ‘Kind of?’
‘Erase that. I fucking cannot get enough of my sister’s little PA.’
I giggle. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, she’s got me all knotted up and twisted around her little finger.’
‘Right. I’ll just file that under Fiction, shall I?’
His eyes are suddenly serious. ‘Why? Does it not seem like that to you?’
I stare into his eyes. ‘You want to know what it really seems like to me. The real truth?’
He nods slowly.
‘You have so many choices. You’ll play with me for a while then you’ll drop me. If I think it’s just sex then I’ll be OK when that day comes. If I think it is anything else I’ll be hurt.’
He strokes my hair. ‘I don’t know what the future holds, Tori, but I know this. I never felt this way about any girl before you. I can’t even bear it when you talk to other men. I feel like ripping their fucking heads off.’
I feel a rush of pure joy fill my heart. My lips widen and I can’t stop grinning like an idiot. ‘Really?’
‘God’s honest truth.’
At that moment I really want to confess about my childhood crush, why I got the PA job to his sister, basically everything, but he takes a prawn and puts it in my mouth. ‘No more talking. I have other things planned for that mouth of yours.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
Tori
Sometimes Cash looks at me with something more than lust in his eyes, but some part of me holds back and I never reveal that I’m in love with him. I can never get past what he said about those crazy mad fans that build shrines to him. I know I should tell him, but every time I try to I just can’t bring myself to do it, and the longer I leave it the harder it is becoming to tell him the truth. I promise myself that I will tell him. Soon. Very soon.
On the Saturday night before Britney’s party, I meet Cash at the front door in a racy black crop top that leaves my midriff bare, a leather skirt, and black patent leather boots.
His eyes widen. ‘Well, well,’ he drawls.
But I shake my head and, taking him by the hand, sit him down at the dining table where I have laid out my surprise.
‘What the’
‘Shhh,’ I say and set about fixing a dark brown wig on his head. Then I glue on a fake, but surprisingly real looking nose on his face. Using a square of sponge, I apply a slightly darker foundation than his complexion onto his whole face and carefully blend it into his hair, then put some on his neck too. The rest is easy. I stick on a moustache and small beard and voila he is pretty unrecognizable.
I lean back to admire my efforts.
‘Where are we going?’ he asks, his eyes alive with excitement.
‘The Ministry Of Sound,’ I say with a grin. I’ve been wanting to go there ever since I arrived in this country.
We sneak out the back of the building and hail a passing black cab. There is a long queue of people that snakes around the building and we join it. Cash looks impatient. I realize he never has to queue to go anywhere. No matter where he goes, he is ushered in immediately and taken to the roped off VIP sections.