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‘I’m not looking after the cat,’ he calls back.
‘Yes, you are. And you’re staying here. In the guest room.’ When he smiles, I see exactly where his thoughts are going. ‘Alone.’ I fill the words with so much meaning, his expression falls. ‘And if you book us somewhere shitty, I’ll have your balls.’
‘And they said working for you would be an opportunity.’
‘It is. Ask Agnes,’ I crow.
‘Where are we going?’ asks Sorcha as I reach the hallway. ‘And can Princess come?’
‘Ah. No. She can’t.’ Before she begins to give me a hard time, I add, ‘Flynn’s going to stay here, plus you’re getting time off school.’
She seems to have decided that’s a fair trade-off as I open the door into the garage.
Chapter 27
PAISLEY
I spend most of Monday in bed in a bad mood and heavy funk.
According to Max, the photographers have gone, and the calls requesting interviews have stopped mainly because the world has moved on. Apparently, today the trolls are hounding a member of the British Parliament who got caught with his pecker in a glory hole in some Amsterdam sleaze pit.It puts a new slant on European relations, I suppose.
While I sort of feel sorry for the man—and his wife—I’m also glad I’m no longer a source of scrutiny. One man’s misery is another girl’s... well, not exactly pleasure. Freedom, maybe? Whatever. Either way, it is nice to be able to switch my phone back on. I’d used it exactly once yesterday to speak to someone from Robin’s management team, who’d basically blew me off. He’d said he’d get back to me once Robin had been released from rehab, and that was that. He wasn’t interested in the slightest that Robin might’ve been stalking me. And of course, they couldn’t trace the source of the lies the press had been told.Or sold. I guess I’ll never know. The official line is that it’s all hearsay, and they can’t do anything about it.
So I switch my phone on and delete the million alerts and the voice messages requesting interviews. There’s nothing from Keir. Not a text. Not a missed call. Not a voicemail.
I know I told him he couldn’t fix this yesterday, but I didn’t expect him to drop me like a hot stone. Being painted to the world as the woman who tore apart Robin’s heart is bad enough—a whore and a cheat—but I can cope with it. It smarts, sure. It makes the blood sizzle in my veins with maximum rage.Set against an inherent kind of impotency.But not hearing from Keir for over twenty-four hours? It does sting. Quite a bit actually. Maybe even more than the stuff on the internet.
I swing my legs out of bed while listening to the last two voicemails. The second to last one is a bit of a given—I didn’t get the job with the midmorning TV show. No one wants a makeup girl who stars in porn, even allegedly. It’s with a sigh of resignation that I listen to the final call. And when the beep sounds at the end, I find myself bursting into a flood of tears.
It’s another hour before I make it downstairs. Still in my old robe. Still with a tear-stained face.
‘Where’s Chas?’ I ask Max as I slide two slices of white toast into Chas’s space-age toaster.
Sitting at the kitchen table, he barely looks up before answering. ‘In her office, I think. Probably editing.’
A dark chuckle sounds from my chest as I open the silverware drawer. ‘I’m sad, not suicidal,’ I mutter.
‘What?’
‘There are no knives in the silverware drawer,’ I announce a little louder, gesturing at the drawer. ‘How am I supposed to butter my toast?’ Is that a touch of hysteria I hear?
‘What are you talking about?’ Max asks, his expression clouded with confusion as he finally looks up from his iPad. The fact that he’s looking makes matters worse as I pull open the dishwasher and find the cutlery basket jam-packed.
‘Obviously, I’m losing my mind.’
‘Oh, sweets,’ Max says. ‘I hate to tell you, but you’ve always been a little crazy But you know what would make you feel better right now?’
‘If you say sex, I will disembowel you with this melon baller,’ I say, grasping the thing in my fist.
‘But sex makes everything better.’
‘Chickenpox?’ I sort of screech. ‘Can it cure chickenpox?’ And now I want to cry again as I think of Sorcha. And then Keir. And what might’ve been if not for, ‘Robin fucking Reed!’ I launch one of the recently popped slices of toast across the room. Max ducks as it sails past his head, and I continue my rant. ‘He’s a bastard, and I’m going to kill him before drugs ever get the chance!’
‘Okay!’ Max calls back, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘Want to hear some good news?’
‘Yes!’ I fold my arms and throw my ass against the deep butler’s sink. ‘Good news would be welcome right about now.’
‘The portal for Fast Girl Media almost crashed with the sheer volume of new subscriptions yesterday.’
