Page 97 of Under Your Spell

When the door closes I stand, frozen for a moment, one question circling round and round in my head: What are we going to do now?

Chapter Thirty-Six

My phone rings again, and this time it’s a video call. Like the Avengers, the mums have assembled, though their base is around our kitchen table. They are all wearing the same expression – a perfect blend of worry and fury.

‘How are you doing?’ Ava asks, her voice sympathetic. ‘Serena caught us up on everything.’

‘I’m…’ I tilt my head, as if trying to get my thoughts and feelings to settle down. ‘I think I’m just overwhelmed right now. It all feels like a bad flashback to last time. Seeing the pictures… There’s a lot of adrenaline. I’m… still shaking.’

‘I can understand that, but this isn’t the same thing, okay?’ Ava’s voice is firm.

‘I knew that if Theo and I got together then eventually we’d have to deal with the press.’ I sit down on the blue sofa. ‘I didn’t want to think about it, but I knew. I just had no idea it would be…’ – I gesture widely – ‘this.’

‘From what Serena has said it’s a perfect storm of things.’ Ava is calm. ‘A slow news day, Theo’s recent absence from the press, the stories about him being in rehab, your father, the photos—’

I grimace here, and Mum grabs the phone, her face suddenly close to the camera. ‘Darling, don’t worry about those. We’ve all been caught up in a moment, and you actually looked very beautiful, the pair of you, like a Pre-Raphaelite painting.’

‘Muuuuum,’ I groan. ‘You cannot say things like that about photographs of me and my boyfriend getting off with each other.’

‘It’s just sex, Clementine,’ she says placidly. ‘Everyone does it.’

‘Not in the side bar of the Daily Mail, they don’t.’

‘Your mum’s right,’ Petty says, drifting back into view. ‘It was very Dante Gabriel Rossetti but, you know, less mournful. That green dress.’ She sighs, dreamily. ‘I think it’s trending on Twitter.’

‘Green dresses really are so powerful,’ Ava agrees.

‘And with the red hair?’ Petty pretends to swoon. ‘Get out of here.’

‘I don’t think any of you understand how serious this is,’ I snap. ‘I’m trying to get a job for one thing.’ I feel hysteria rising inside me. ‘And now those photos are out there. Me half dressed with a rock star’s hands up my skirt. Who’s going to hire me?’

‘It’s hardly like you’ve got an OnlyFans account,’ Mum says cheerfully. ‘Your privacy was invaded! Not that in this day and age an OnlyFans account is anything to be ashamed of either…’

I close my eyes, not at all sure I want to be distracted from the current crisis by how deep my mum’s knowledge of OnlyFans runs. ‘I don’t think that matters.’

‘So we’ll get the pictures taken down,’ Ava says.

‘How?’ I ask.

Her mouth thins. ‘I haven’t ironed out the details yet, but we’ll make it happen.’

‘I just can’t believe this is happening again,’ I say finally. ‘These pictures of me, out in the world… I know I’m not seventeen anymore, but I feel exactly the same. So helpless. So violated. I hate it.’ A tear spills down my cheek.

There’s a sound in the doorway, and I look up to find Theo standing there. I can only assume he heard what I said because he looks like he’s swallowed a rusty razor blade.

‘Hey,’ I say softly.

‘Hey.’ He tries to smile, but can’t quite pull it off. His posture is taut as a bow string.

‘The mums are on the phone,’ I say, holding up the screen so that they can all greet each other.

Theo’s eyes anxiously scan my face, and it’s easy to see the concern swimming in them. ‘I spoke to the PR people and they don’t think we should comment at this point,’ he says and then hesitates. ‘But there have been a couple of developments.’

I don’t like the sound of that. ‘What sort of developments?’

He clears his throat. ‘Um, well, there’s this…’ He moves around the sofa and gives me his phone. Our fingers touch and his usually warm hands are ice cold.

I look down at the screen.