Chapter Twenty
Scarlett had bought a newspaper every day since she’d run out on Dylan. She scoured that day’s edition, praying the fuss over her and Axel had died down. There had been an article about the brothers’ early childhood, and another about drugs and the effects they had on the body. In that one they’d included a before and after picture of Sky young and fresh-faced and another one, surely photoshopped, as he looked half dead. A testimony to the drugs that had done him in, she supposed.
Her mangled heart had turned over as she’d traced the image of his face, remembering the good times and blocking out the bad. The pain of missing Dylan added to her already burgeoning heartache.
The entrance intercom buzzed and she flinched, wanting simply to be left alone, but she wearily hauled herself to her feet buzzed open the main door and warily checked through her peep hole to see who it was. A pale Axel stood on her doorstep.
She hauled him inside as quickly as she could, although she was almost sure the journalists had grown sick of stalking her, and shouldn’t be able to bypass the intercom system, although that was never a given, knowing how sneaky they could be. It wasn’t as if there was anything left that they didn’t know about, anyway. ‘Axel, what’s wrong?’
‘I had to come and tell you in person, that it was nothing to do with me.’
‘What wasn’t?’ Even as she spoke, dread filled her — it had to be bad news for him to come out to see her.
‘I’ve been really grateful for all the support you gave me. My mum is speaking to me again because of you, and the strongest drug I take is Paracetamol. I just wanted you to know that.’
‘So . . . Why did you come?’ It was unlikely he’d hauled himself all the way across London just to thank her.
He shook his head, his gaze shifting, not quite meeting her eyes.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. I’ve been calling you for weeks. Have you changed your number?’ She filled the kettle, although a sudden urge to open a bottle of wine hit her as she took in Axel’s nervousness.
He moistened his dry lips, turning his mobile around and around in his fingers, clearly agitated, but he nodded. ‘Yes, I couldn’t take them calling me all the time.’
Scarlett knew the feeling well. She’d been deflecting phone calls for two years now. ‘What’s happened?’ She pushed Axel gently onto the chair — mostly because he looked like he’d fall any second, anyway. She felt decidedly wobbly on her own legs. ‘Tell me. Just come out with it,’ she said, as his mouth moved silently.
‘Some television journalist has written a book about Sky. He seems to know everything about him.Everything.’ His words came out in a rush, and he shook his head as if he couldn’t believe, himself, what he was saying.
Scarlett breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That’s not too bad, is it? There’s already a book about him, isn’t there?’
‘This one is different.’ Axel nudged his toe into the carpet, looking uncomfortable.
‘It’s probably one of the journalists who kept trying to track me down, I got so sick of it I almost changed my number but in the end I just gave all my close friends and family the same ringtone and ignored the rest.’
But Axel’s countenance hadn’t cleared; there was clearly more to come. ‘He was always in the news, anyone could have found out what he was like . . .’ She trailed off on seeing Axel’s stricken face. ‘Is it stuff about me? But I didn’t do anything.’
‘Not as such. They don’t really focus on you much, although they do mention your airline and that you two were often seen together.’ He sighed. ‘There was an inference that in your position, you must have known about the drugs. You were touring with him most of the time — they just assumed.’ Axel scratched his head, looked at the ceiling and the floor as if he’d find his next sentence better constructed in the cream carpet.
‘Been there before,’ she said, puzzled. ‘Tell me what this is really about.’
‘They detail his girlfriends from when he became famous — practically dateline them. All of them.’
‘All of his girlfriends?’ She frowned. He wasn’t a saint, and she knew he’d had girls before he met her. She shook her head, still confused. There was nothing she didn’t know, even about the one-night stand he’d had, which had sent her to hell and back before she’d managed to forgive him. So, what was Axel saying?
She mentally ran through photographs of the women he’d been seen with, trying to remember if any of them had acted overly friendly. A conveyor belt of beautiful women rolled through her head, morphing into one gross, designer-clad, fake-breasted woman. ‘You mean . . . do you mean when we were an item — me and Sky?’ The sense of dread grew.
Axel nodded briefly.
It took a while for it to sink in. She shook her head. It couldn’t be true. She scrutinised Axel’s face, but he showed nothing beyond his own discomfort.
She cast her mind back again to any likely scenarios when she should have twigged, but she came up with nothing.
Biting her lip, she recalled how often he’d been away — and how often she’d been away, flying other clients around the world. They had never made the commitment to move in together so when it boiled down to it, she really had no idea what Sky had got up to when he wasn’t with her. But he’d loved her, she’d believed that, and that love had protected them from interlopers in their life. But clearly it hadn’t and she’d been deluded. She shook her head in disbelief. It couldn’t be true. He’d needed her, dependedon her. ‘Heloved me,’ she blurtedout asif Axel was trying to deny it.
‘He did, Scarlett. You were his rock, his link to reality when he lost the plot.’ He smiled tightly, the absolute truth of it hitting Scarlett as Axel fidgeted, looking as if he wanted to bolt — because after all, he knew his brother better than she did. Was he really saying that she was just a safe haven to return to when he’d finished playing fast and loose? That couldn’t be what he meant, it just couldn’t.
She blinked in confusion. They’d been so happy together before the drugs took hold. She smiled weakly waiting for some words of comfort, but Axel’s face contorted and crumpled. He looked as if he was about to cry, and Scarlett had to remind herself that he’d been to hell and back, too.
If Sky had seen fit to cheat on her, it wasn’t Axel’s fault, and there’d be no point in shooting the messenger. She ran a hand over her face, giving herself time to compose her features, needing time to think.
Axel’s eyes were bleak when he finally looked at her. ‘There’s one more thing.’ He took a deep breath, and Scarlett knew a killer line was on its way. ‘One of his lovers has a child. She says Sky knew all about the little girl.’ He took one look at Scarlett and stood quickly. ‘I’ll make that tea, I think.’
Scarlett’s world blurred at his words. Her furniture swam before her eyes as she held on to the table to stay upright and bile rose in her throat. She gagged and thought she might be sick, but she swallowed down her nausea, almost unable to take in Axel’s words. But deep down, she knew it would be the truth. The biographer would have checked, double checked, his facts, knowing that he could be sued if he printed lies.
But she had one last try at dissuading herself, staring at the carpet in the way Axel had, hoping to find the answer.
‘What if it’s just a story? You know how stupid rumours start?’ Most of Sky’s posturing was for show. It wasn’t real, was it? I mean there was always someone bleating to the press, but that happens when you’re a household name. ‘Anything for fifteen minutes of fame by claiming you slept with Sky Angel.’ Her voice rose to a panicked whine, and she heard her own desperation, denying it against the obvious facts. ‘We need to put them straight, whoever they are. It’s slander.’ She looked at Axel, waiting for him to join in with a plan of action, but Axel wasn’t defending his dead brother, and the only action he looked capable of was falling over.
He stared fixedly at the mugs of tea he placed on the table, before his sorrowful eyes met hers. ‘Mum has met her, Charlotte, that’s the little girl. It’s given mum some comfort.’
Scarlett’s hand flew to her mouth as she tried to deaden the anguished cry. ‘No, no!’ She sank to the floor, shaking her head. ‘How old?’
‘She’s three now.’
‘Poor mite,’ she whispered, even as she tried not to choke on Sky’s treachery. She covered her face with her hands as she stumbled into a chair sitting down heavily. ‘All that time, all that grieving. And . . .’ She glanced over at Axel as she wiped her nose and her eyes with the back of her hand, still hoping that he might come up with a better story. One she could deal with. What if she had been just a rock for Sky and she’d been completely delusional about the rest? What if she was just another bedfellow and comfort blanket to discard when it wasn’t needed? She hadn’t seen anything untoward because she hadn’t been looking for it.
She shook her head in disbelief at her naivety.
Axel looked at Scarlett and Scarlett looked at Axel but neither of them spoke because there were no words left to put it right.
Axel just patted her back, clearly out of his depth, unused to being the bearer of such devastating news. He returned to the sofa, heaving out a breath, then another breath as if he was about to hyperventilate. His discomfort at her anger and pain was tangible, and she knew she needed to give him an opt out.
‘Thank you for letting me know,’ she said quietly. ‘I appreciate it. Forewarned is forearmed, and all that stuff.’ She took in the realisation that anyone could read all about her and Sky, anytime they wished. The biography would lay her wide open, in glorious black and white, forever.
She needed to read the book. She could never read the book.
Axel rose unsteadily. ‘If there’s anything else I can do?’ He looked as lost as she felt.
‘Thanks. Keep in touch, yeah?’ She staggered to her feet, weary and totally numb, anxious for him to leave so she could lose herself in this new alien grief: grieving for a person who in reality hadn’t existed. A fictitious Sky who had a life she knew nothing about.
She walked into the hallway, straightened her spine and lifted her chin before opening the main door. She was done with being intimidated by journalists and people who knew nothing about her. Defiantly she walked out with Axel.
Axel took a step towards her and stroked her hair, the gesture awkward. ‘Will you be . . . ?’
‘I’ll be fine, really.’
Axel bent down to kiss her on the cheek, and a bright light flashed in her face. ‘Oh, do me a favour, will you?’ she yelled in the direction of the unseen photographer, camera flashes continuing.
As she watched Axel disappear down the steps another figure lumbered up to them. Shit and double shit, she thought, what now? Was there anything left to go wrong?
A camera flash lit up one side of Todd’s face as he reached the top step, and she groaned as realisation hit. Looks as if that’s a yes, then. ‘Come in, Todd.’ She turned on her automatic smile, even as she died inside, her re-adjusted thoughts of Sky trampled on before she had time to sift through them and accept that her version of their life together had been a figment of her imagination.
She eyeballed Todd, not in the mood to be civil, even though she knew he would demand attention, and she would have to acquiesce to keep on the right side of him.
By the look on his face, as she let him in, he already knew about the book.
‘I’m guessing that was the brother.’ He jerked his thumb towards the retreating Axel as he walked confidently along the hallway into the sitting room.
Scarlett nodded unhappily. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve already read the book.’
‘Don’t be silly. I don’t read gutter-press books. I read about it in one of the dreadful newspapers we buy for the less intelligent passengers.’ He glanced at her. ‘You look dreadful, by the way.’
Scarlett blanched and lifted her hands up to her cheeks, wanting to retreat to her bedroom to put some make-up on as the air stewardess in her kicked in. Instead, she glared at Todd,sensing the bullish mood he’d arrived in and already knowing the way their conversationwould play out: he’d try and make her feel cheap so he could retain the upper hand andmanipulate her. She’d need to keep her wits about her when all she wanted to do was curlinto a ball andhowl.
She discreetly blotted her eyes with her sleeve and bit down on her lip, determined not to let Todd be privy to her emotions.
‘So, it’s all come out in the wash, then?The great Sky Angel?’
Scarlett eyed him warily, saying nothing.
Todd clearly took her silence for acquiescence. ‘We knew, the StarJet directors, obviously, that things had gone too far with your friendship, but we weathered the storm back then. But this book mentions StarJet a considerable amount of times. Most unfortunate.’
‘Most of it will be rubbish. It was the last time.’
‘Well, what can I say? You’re a dark horse, alright.’ He continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
She pursed her lips wishing she could tell Todd to mind his own business. ‘I’ve no idea what’s in the book, Todd. I haven’t read it.’
‘The general gist of it, though, is correct. Yes?’
‘I guess so, apart from the implication that I had anything to do with his drug-taking.’ She wondered exactly why Todd had visited instead of phoning. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she offered,
‘Yes, please, unless you have anything stronger.’ He took off his jacket and threw it casually on the sofa. The gesture seemed threatening as it hit the grey suede of the cushion. It said he was not a man in a hurry.
Scarlett looked at the jacket and then looked at the man, his grin malicious and sly. The look said that he finally had something on her, and would be delighted to use it to his advantage. She hated herself for thinking she needed to keep him sweet. If he were a decent man, he would be kind to her in light of what he now knew, but he wasn’t a decent man. She steeled herself, knowing he’d enjoy his moment and drop the deal he was clearly preparing for, when he was good and ready.
Trying to remain calm, she hovered over the kettle waiting for it to boil, her mind racing through the possibilities. She would have to tread carefully, he was acting way too calm.
‘Here we are.’ She placed two cups of tea on the low table and sat down on the single armchair, waiting.
‘I checked through your contract at work, the bit where it says you had to report any . . . erm nefarious activities. That bit?’ He smiled encouragingly, as if willing her to remember.
Scarlett groaned inwardly; it was clear that he was referring to her relationship with Sky. What a nasty person he was. ‘Yes?’ She kept her face neutral.
‘It seems that you did.’
‘Did what?’
Todd nodded, his supercilious smile nauseating her.
‘Had, shall we politely call it, activities with a client. You broke the rules and neglected to tell us about the situation you found yourself in. You were questioned by the police, I believe.’
‘Look, Todd, this is old news. So why are you here, what is this really all about? What do you want me to say? Are you waiting for me to plead for my job, or do you want some kind of grovelling apology from me?’ She glared at him, tempted to tell him to shove his job up his large arse. She really was in no mood to listen to his pompous ponderings.
His smile was tight, and he inclined his head as if it was her job to discover why he was there. ‘It’s the suggestion of the drug-taking that bothers us.’
By us she took that to mean Todd, whipping up trouble where there wasn’t any. She stayed calm and waited, even though she wanted to kick him out of her flat and her life with a resounding slam of the door.
He reached over into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope, smoothing down the space next to him on the sofa with his other hand. ‘I have a proposition for you. Come over here and read this.’
She stared at the letter as if it was a live hand grenade, as he stroked the grey suede of her sofa. The last thing she wanted to do was to sit next to him, but he patted the patch of soft suede again and smiled up at her, and she knew he wouldn’t pass the letter over to her unless she did as she was bid, so she rose reluctantly and sat next to him.
‘That’s better.’ He patted her knee, and she tried not to flinch. ‘This is a letter offering StarJet the opportunity to merge with a bigger airline.’ He pulled out a thick, cream piece of paper from the envelope. ‘We’d acquire G4s, too, which, as you know, would be far superior to our aircraft. We’ve negotiated with them for quite some time, and finally the deal has been done.’
‘What has this got to do with me?’
‘We’ll need a base manager, and we’ll have to recruit more cabin staff. I’m offering you the job.’
‘Oh.’ She was surprised by the offer, but as he passed the letter over to her, his thumb brushed hers. He held the letter for a second too long. He stared into her eyes. ‘Would you like the job?’
If she hadn’t been so close to crying, she would have laughed in his face. They both knew he was asking for so much more than her acceptance, and she swallowed nervously. ‘What happens if I don’t take the job offer?’
Her fingers trembled, and she let go of the letter.
Todd sighed heavily as he refolded it, tucking it back into his pocket. ‘Why don’t you take a week, or so, away from work? We won’t call it suspension, and we’ll pay your salary. Have a little think about your options? I’ll be meeting with the board at the end of the month, so I’ll need your answer by then. If it’s yes, we can take off for a couple of days together, to . . . talk about your new position. If it’s no, then I’m not sure I can save you. You know how we take exception to any kind of adverse publicity and this new book has all the makings of whipping up a storm for StarJet.’ He drained his mug, picked up his jacket, and stood up briskly. ‘Sky Angel’s biography will no doubt be in all of the shops soon. Everyone who reads it will know everything there is to know about you and it might be very uncomfortable for you. As a representative of StarJet I can ease the heavy load for you.’ His oily smirk was knowing and smug. ‘But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
What a load of old bollocks, Scarlett thought as she decided to call time on the farce that played out in front of her. She stood up, too, and folded her arms protectively across her chest. Todd took a step towards her, his smile wide, like a wolf about to attack. He drew a circular pattern across her bare arm with his finger, trailing up to her shoulder. ‘I think we’d get on pretty well, if you just gave it a chance.’
She was catatonic with horror at his touch, only rousing herself when he stopped. She swallowed, her mouth dry as dust. ‘Thank you for the offer — I’ll think about it.’
‘Don’t think for too long. I don’t know how long I can hold the position open.’ He inclined his head once more, the thin smile stretching slightly. ‘If you could show me out.’
Her hands itched to smack the smarmy smile off his face, but she simply said, ‘Sure,’ and pulled open the door. But Todd didn’t move, just stood in front of the open door. She sighed, knowing that he meant for her to show him out of the building, as if he couldn’t find his own way. He was so power crazy he had to show her who was the boss at every opportunity. She half expected the flash of cameras once more, but all was silent; they’d already got what they’d come for.
Todd turned at the top of the step, leaning forward, and catching her unawares, he grabbed her arms and kissed her fully on the lips.
He pushed his tongue inside her mouth, and she put her hands on his chest to shove him away, unable to hide her revulsion, or bear such an intimacy. His hands were like steel bands around her arms, though, making the move ineffectual, and she was forced to endure his unwanted intimacy for several long moments.
‘I’ll wait to hear from you,’ he said, when he finally broke away from her.
She closed her eyes to block out his face, trying not to gag.Yeah,when hell freezes over.
She slammedthe door closed, trying not to throw up, wiping savagely at herlips.