Chapter 8
A lexandra
Inside my suite of rooms, I locked the door and tossed my shoes to a corner then entered my bedroom. A shirt flew through the air, thrown by Dori. I caught it, a favourite one I usually wore to bed. He smirked at me then rifled through his sports bag, extracting a pack of pills. He popped one and drained a bottle of water.
I wrinkled my nose. “What is that?”
“Something to knock me out. Can’t sleep without the meds, won’t function tomorrow without rinsing out my kidneys.”
I entered the bathroom and stripped my clothes then slipped the long t-shirt over my head. For a moment, I studied myself in the mirror. Life had come full circle. The shirt was Raphael’s, given to me on that fateful night we were photographed together.
I swallowed down a pang of emotion, maybe for the loss of the girl I’d been, or for some kind of regret for the evening. There was something in Raphael’s manner that always made me feel…judged. It made me want to rebel against him, and that childish reaction allowed me to enable Dori. What a mess.
Methodically, I removed my make-up.
Images from the evening kept on coming in a fierce bombardment. The art gallery. The cutting words. Dori launching into a fight. Raphael rescuing me. The memory of his warmth almost batted away the icier ones, but not enough.
Back in my bedroom, Dori had already passed out face down on my big bed. I took a second to check he was still breathing then left him and entered the bedroom next door. I kept the lamps off.
Faint light from the windows gleamed over an easel which held a half-finished painting. Another portrait. On a table next to it, my paint-spattered tray held tubes and brushes.
Fuck my stupid dreams.
I marched to it and snatched the canvas free. Raising it, I cracked it down over my knee, splintering the frame, then repeating it on the other side. When it was broken beyond repair, I shoved the whole thing into the bin.
It did nothing for my upset, but at least I wouldn’t have to look at my failure again tomorrow.
A toe poked my side, rousing me from a heavy sleep.
“What?” I opened an eye.
Dori held out a mug, which I assumed was coffee, and a packet of paracetamol.
“Drink me, eat me, then choose between the bad news or the badder news.”
I struggled up, my head pounding in the worst way. Last night, I’d left the shutters of my bedroom closed, but strong daylight pierced them in streams, telling me it was late in the day. I accepted two pills and washed them down with a swig of Dori’s drink.
“Badder isn’t a word. And I don’t want either. But tell me anyway.”
“Despite my best efforts, a picture was sold.”
I groaned and dropped my head back to the padded headboard. “I don’t know if that’s bad more than just expected. What’s the rest?”
There was an interesting pause. I blinked my eyes open to find Dori giving me a quizzical look.
“The picture is of your overprotective bodyguard half carrying you from the club.”
“Let me guess the headlines. I was too drunk to stand? Pulled from a fight?”
“They took another angle. A comparison to a previous scandal.”
I stared at him. “What? Just spit it out.”
Instead of speaking, he took back the coffee and held out his phone. Onscreen were two pictures, side by side. In the first, I was under Raphael’s arm, my wig askew and the mask half off so it was clearly me. The photo cut off at Raphael’s chin, so only displayed him in a partial view. The second was of me exiting the house party at age eighteen, a half-naked Raphael behind me.
The headline screamed: ‘Sexy Lexi: Five Years of Hot Antics.’ The article claimed once a party girl, always a party girl.
I grumbled and pushed it away. “It was the photographer outside who took that shot, then. Not the man you tackled, so you did help.”
Still, Dori was regarding me with interest.
“What?” I asked.
He raised his phone again and enlarged the picture so it focused on Raphael’s jawline and down to his broad shoulders. He then dragged the photo to show the same in the second shot. The parallels were obvious. It was the reason the editor had picked that photo as a pairing to last night’s one—the framing was almost identical. Except they hadn’t made the connection Dori was about to, only referencing an unidentified bodyguard in the more recent shot.
“I knew he was familiar,” my friend drawled. “He’s the same guy you moped over when you left Edinburgh. Tell me I’m right.”
“I don’t mope.”
He snapped his fingers in utter delight. “He used your name like you were friends, because he knows you. Why didn’t you say, darling girl?”
Why hadn’t I? I spoke to Dori every day about all manner of trivial things, but maybe that was the point. Raphael wasn’t trivial. He felt like a deeply buried secret, though that made no sense as I hardly knew him.
I stole back the coffee. “He’s no one, and there’s nothing to tell.”
There really wasn’t. At eighteen, I’d touched him, wanted him, and then I’d left him behind. When I saw him next, I’d apologise and we’d move on. I could only blame my hangover for how everything about that felt off.