Star Struck (Yorkshire Romances #2)

Chapter Twenty-One

I hid in the room until the following evening, with the assistance of a kind of ad hoc room service, who brought me, rather oddly, a plate of toast, two hard-boiled eggs and an enormous pan of something which resembled paella. I wasn’t about to attempt any outings downstairs, not when I might run into Gethryn, either sober or drunk, and the few times I ventured up the corridor and knocked on his door, Jack hadn’t been in his room.

I did my make-up with shaking hands. Gethryn would be there tonight. I’d have to look him in the face, knowing him for what he truly was under the glamour of show business. Knowing him for the drunken letch who used his screen persona as bait, a man for whom the word ‘no’ was an aphrodisiac. I shivered at how close I might have come to being forced into something I didn’t want, wondering how many other girls had fallen for Gethryn’s patter and then found themselves trying to gloss over something that hadn’t been consensual. Wondered how many had pushed the memories away behind the signed photographs he handed out like boons. Did they tell themselves that they’d wanted it? Because of who he was?

It was almost like a mini panic attack, this sudden flushing of my system with adrenaline, the desire to pee every ten seconds and the great Stomach Rebellion which made me feel alternately sick and as though everything I’d ever eaten was going to fall out of my bottom if I so much as coughed. When I checked my face in the mirror, I saw that I was almost green and my scar stood out like a bone marker under the make-up, thrown into relief by the lighting and the foundation, streaking down my forehead, splitting my eyebrow in two and stuttering to a standstill across my cheekbone. I couldn’t go anywhere like this.

I began struggling out of the dress, unlacing the bodice-strapping across my chest with both hands to save time. When I heard the knock at the door, I held the velvet up against me in an attitude of Victorian shock. ‘Who is it?’

‘Who were you expecting?’

‘Oh, Jack? . . .’ I pulled the door open, still attempting modesty with the flapping bodice, ‘I can’t go to the ball, I really can’t. Don’t try to make me. If you go down now I expect Ruth will still be free and she’ll? . . . accommodate you,’ I finished, my mind suddenly flashing unwanted images of Jack being accommodated by another woman.

‘Hey.’ Jack held out a hand to shut me up. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He came in and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Take your time.’

I looked at him. He was wearing his pyjama bottoms, tightly fastened around the fly I was glad to see, bare feet and a T-shirt which was more crumple than fabric, and bore the legend ‘Sweet? . . . maybe. Passionate? . . . I suppose. But don’t ever mistake that for nice.’ ‘That’s a Doctor Who quote.’

He inclined his head, gravely.

‘But? . . . what the hell were you going as?’

He flipped his glasses from where they were hooked into the neck of the T and pushed them on. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

I began to giggle. ‘Oh, my God, you’re going as yourself! That’s brilliant.’

‘Glad you think so.’ The glasses magnified his eyes and made the little flecks that danced within them look like slices of sunlight.

‘Yeah. Cheating, but brilliant.’

The black lace showed against his throat under the baggy neck of the shirt, and I found that I was staring at it. The darkness of it made his skin look very pale. ‘What are you staring at now?’

‘The thong around your neck. Do you always wear it?’

His hand came up, almost defensively, and a finger traced the leather. ‘Pretty much.’

‘Even when you’re working?’

There was a kind of pause, during which I suddenly realised that the thong was so much more to him than mere decoration. I didn’t know what it stood for, why he wore it, but I could see in his eyes that questions about it made him wary. ‘Mmm. Look, what’s all this about not wanting to go to the ball?’

I sat on the bed, fiddling with the flappy bit of dress where I was still incompletely laced up. ‘Jack. Look at me.’

His stare briefly traced my face before settling back into my eyes. ‘What am I supposed to be seeing?’

‘This!’ I poked myself in the scar and stood up again. The weight of the skirt tugged the dress down a few inches and I had to perform a haulage operation in order to get the bodice to cover my chest.

‘Okay. Seeing it. Refusing to believe that’s what’s stopping you from coming to the ball with me. Don’t you think it’s just a touch solipsistic to think that people will even notice? There’re people down there who have spent months on their costumes, getting every detail right? . . .’ He gave a short, hollow laugh. ‘They’re really not going to be looking at your scar. And anyway, don’t you want to see if I can dance?’

‘You said you could.’

‘Maybe I was lying.’ He tilted his head to one side and gave me an unblinking stare. ‘Or is it something else? Some one? . . . oh, please tell me you’re not going to let Gethryn ruin our evening! Skye, I know the guy is a bastard but? . . .’

‘He scared me,’ I said quietly. ‘What you saw in the car park, you were right, I didn’t want it. He was? . . . I mean, I think he would have stopped if I’d told him, but? . . . I’m not sure, and he’s said things? . . . just because he’s famous he seems to think he can have any woman he wants, can make her do whatever he wants.’

Despite my anxiety, when Jack ran his tongue along his lower lip, thinking, a tingle ran the length of my spine. ‘Nobody has ever accused him of anything,’ he said slowly. ‘But then he does tend to pick girls who? . . . sorry? . . . have issues. Girls who might be grateful, girls he can manipulate because they think he? . . .’ A sudden shake of his head sent his glasses askew across his face and he pulled them off, pushed one of the side arms into his mouth. ‘I tried to warn you.’

‘Yeah, right, for the record, Jack, an actual warning might have been more use than your oblique “he’s not very nice”, you know. If you’re going to warn someone, telling them what you’re warning them about is generally better than dark, broody hinting. This isn’t an episode; you don’t have to keep up the tension for the full fifty minutes.’ I realised that my bodice was heading floorwards again and gave it a mighty heave.

I got a grin for that. ‘Sorry. Force of habit and lack of experience. Now, come on, you’re not going to let him deprive you of the chance to watch me strut my funky thing, are you?’

I closed my arms against my body. ‘I don’t know.’

Gently he pushed me by one shoulder until I turned around. ‘Do it up properly and we’ll go down. Go on, I’m not looking.’

He wasn’t. When I sneaked a quick glance over my shoulder I saw him staring down at his feet, wiggling his long toes against the carpet. His hair hid his face from me. ‘So, then.’ I began relacing the dress, refusing to let my mind go back to thinking about Gethryn when Jack was there, so darkly alluring. ‘You were going to tell me about that thing around your neck?’

He did it again, raising his fingers to toy with the leather. ‘It was Ryan’s,’ he said in such a quiet voice that I wasn’t sure I’d heard.

Ryan. His best friend. Who’d been killed in the accident that had given Jack his scars. Whoo. Was there some kind of homoerotic thing going on here?

‘I wear it to remind me.’ And then his voice strengthened. ‘Why don’t you wear your engagement ring? I’d have thought it would be something you’d find it hard to be parted from.’

My fingers became clumsy. ‘I? . . . we? . . . I don’t have one.’

Why didn’t I have a ring? Michael had been loaded, some kind of job in investments, regular bonuses, a collection of cars and his own flat. I’d been told all that much, seen the pictures. So why hadn’t he bought me a ring? If I’d thrown it at him during that last fight at the party, why hadn’t Felix mentioned it? I pulled the last string through. ‘I’ve finished.’

‘You look fabulous.’ Jack’s eyes gleamed behind his glasses. ‘Real Skeldarian Queen. Apart from the strange smell.’

‘That was Gethryn. Well, it was his drink. I’ve had the dress hanging out of the window ever since, but it still smells a bit? . . .’ I sniffed, ‘fruity. Do you think I should change?’

‘I really don’t think anyone but me is going to notice, Skye. Honestly, it’s okay, it doesn’t even smell like drink any more.’

‘Well, sorry, but colour me still slightly worried.’

He stood up alongside me. His height matched mine now I wore the towering shoes I’d borrowed along with the dress; my gaze was exactly level with his eyes. I could just make out the darker ring of pupil inside the near-black iris. ‘Onward then.’ After a momentary hesitation, Jack took my hand and looped it through his elbow. ‘Come on. Let’s make a grand entrance.’

‘You’re in your pyjamas.’

‘And you smell of boiled fruit, but we can still make an entrance, can’t we?’

It was, indeed, an entrance. I hadn’t realised, but most people were already in the diner and our arrival coincided with a pause between tracks that the band had been playing, accompanied by images from the show projected onto the long back wall. We walked in to chatting, which died away, to be replaced by a round of applause.

I was holding my breath.

‘You okay?’ Jack murmured to me, over the clapping. ‘Sure?’

I let my breath out in a little gasp and nodded. Jack’s hold on my arm increased, pulling me hard up against his body. He smelled clean, of ironed linen and coconut shampoo, not a trace of smoke about him, so he must, I reasoned, be fairly relaxed. Which was good, one nervous wreck per couple was quite enough. ‘Hey,’ he whispered in my ear, ‘let’s find out if I was lying, shall we?’

With one arm still around me he moved out onto the dance floor which was a posh name for the space surrounding the band, who were playing in a corner of the diner and consisted of two scruffy guitarists, a sweaty drummer and a keyboard player with only one arm. Jack stepped, faultlessly, into the rhythm of the music. He put both hands on my waist until we swayed in unison to the indie rock track, grinning at me as he did so. ‘You can dance,’ I said into his ear as the music drove us closer together. ‘You’re pretty good, for a miserable git.’

‘Yep.’ He stepped around me, sliding his body around mine, with maximum contact, until the velvet of my skirt wound across his skinny hips and drew us even closer. He moved like a snake and actually seemed to be enjoying himself, for once. ‘Love dancing. Always have.’

‘All right.’ The band took the tempo up, driving into a Green Day cover. ‘Let’s see how good you really are.’

I lost myself in the music, in the proximity of Jack’s whirling body, in the occasional close moments when he pressed his hot skin against mine and whispered, ‘Had enough yet?’

‘Not while you’re still standing, Whitaker,’ I whispered back, and he laughed and threw himself back into the beat.

At last the band took a break and, panting and giggling, Jack and I left the floor. His face had softened; without the lines of stress he usually carried he was more than just good-looking, he was quite breathtaking. Little shivers of enjoyment rippled the surface of my skin. ‘Hey, you go and sit over there. I’ll get us both a drink.’

I perched on a chair just inside the doors which were open to the yard, in the way of the cooling breeze, and admired the costumes on display. I couldn’t see Felix, but there were a lot of Shadow Planet refugees dotted around the room; in their furs and dark glasses they were interchangeable and any one of them could have been him, although I would have taken bets on him being the one weaving furiously closer to the bar which had been erected behind the usual food-counter. A number of beautiful girls wearing pilot costumes were clustering around a sober-looking Gethryn, who, to my relief, hadn’t even acknowledged my presence, the Thulos telepaths moved ethereally in character through the crowd and over near the door to the reception area I saw the two lads dressed as the alien Skeel race that I’d noticed before, weighted nearly double by the cylinders on their backs and I wondered how they’d managed to get those through the doors.

For a while I sat, legs stretched out, and watched the rise and fall of groupings. Everyone seemed automatically drawn to those wearing similar costumes, so the crowd rapidly clotted into sets of B’Ha, Shadow Planet residents, Thulos and pilots, with the alien races forming a separate sub-set on the other side of the room. Two token Klingons and a solitary person inside an inflatable Dalek suit free-floated for a while then latched onto each other and were drawn into the rest of the aliens. Everyone seemed happy, relaxed.

I could see Jack across the room, talking to Jared, who was wearing his full regalia as Prince of Skeldar. They saw me watching. Jared raised his glass and Jack winked, flicking back his sweat-dampened hair, and I smiled back, the smile dying a little when a young man approached me. He was cropped- headed and massively stubbled, as though his hair grew in a consistent ring around his whole skull, and was wearing a crew T-shirt, jeans and an earpiece. ‘Hi,’ he said in a business-like way. ‘You’re Skye Threppel, right?’ He came and stood in front of me, blocking my view of the diner. ‘We need to have a conversation.’

‘Why, are you trying to avoid someone?’ I looked up at him, unwilling to stand up and risk spiking him on the unfamiliar heels.

‘I mean, we need to talk with you.’

‘Who’s we ?’

‘Just come with me please.’ He touched a walkie-talkie device at his belt and spoke into a headset. ‘Yeah, she’s with me. I’m bringing her in now.’

‘What? Bringing me in where?’

‘Please. Just come with me.’ He reached out a burly arm which, I was slightly comforted to see, bore a tattoo of a Shadow Ship, and hauled me to my feet, where I tottered for a second until I got my balance.

‘Brandon? What’s up?’ Jack arrived back at my side and pushed a bottle of chilled water into my hand. ‘What do you want with Skye?’

‘Hello, Mr Whitaker.’ Was it my imagination or did this official guy look a bit shamefaced? ‘Maybe you better come along too.’

‘Where?’ Jack took his glasses off and hooked them back into his shirt. His eyes had gone chilly. ‘What’s this about?’

‘I’ve been told to bring Miss Threppel to the office. They’ll explain there.’

The three of us walked from the diner. Jack led the way and I followed the security guy, who wove through the crowd as though no-one in the world existed apart from him. I saw a few glances thrown at us, a couple of conversations interrupted to watch us pass through the room, one pilot nudged another and one of the Skeel half-raised his tinted visor. It all made me very uncomfortable, and I was glad when we’d reached the reception area again.

‘This way.’

Again, with Jack leading, I was waved through, past the reception desk and into the back offices of the motel, through a small room with a telephone and a TV showing a Fawlty Towers episode, into a tiny square room with only one high window. It was a little bit like a cell, even down to the concrete floor, although it had several plastic chairs and a cast-off looking table sitting directly in the middle. On one of the chairs, elbows on the table, sat a man I’d seen around the place all week. He too wore a crew T-shirt but was older than most of the backstage guys. His hair was a cropped salt-and-pepper mix, but his jaw was square and his face uncompromisingly good-looking. He looked as though he’d walked out of Law and Order .

‘Hey, Jay.’ He stood up to shake Jack’s hand. Didn’t offer to shake mine.

‘Hi, Gary. What’s going on?’ Jack turned around and I shuffled up closer to him. Although Brandon had gone to stand over near the door, he was still too present for my liking. ‘This is all a bit formal, isn’t it?’

He looked over at the little fold-up table and I saw his eyebrows lift. On the table sat my quiz answer sheet. I recognised the crossed out answer to the name of Defries’s mother, where I’d scratched out the right answer and replaced it with Mary in order to throw first prize. Were they going to accuse me of that? But it hadn’t worked, had it?

‘Kinda has to be formal, I’m afraid.’ Gary had a gruff voice, again straight out of Central Casting. ‘Some serious accusations have been made.’

I made a little squeaky sound and Jack looked at me sharply. ‘Gethryn?’

Gary smiled. ‘No.’

Jack closed his eyes in a long blink. ‘Okay, what then?’

Gary turned to me. ‘You’re Skye Threppel?’

‘Yes, I’m Skye.’

‘And you won our quiz.’ It wasn’t a question. He picked up my answers and flipped through the papers. ‘Mind telling me how you did that?’

My fingers found each other and twiddled in front of me, fingertips tracing scars. ‘I answered more questions right than anyone else.’

‘Smart lady, eh?’ Gary stood up and I was reassured to see that he was only a couple of inches taller than me. Brandon, the burly man with the tattoo who’d fetched me away from the party, wasn’t much taller. Neither of them was physically overwhelming, but I began to feel a little bit intimidated.

‘You asked.’

‘There’s one question here? . . . “Name the pilot who fired the first shot in the Shadow War”.’ Again, not framed as a question, but it sounded as though he wanted an answer.

‘Jevan Klye.’ I couldn’t help myself. ‘Piloting the Shadow Ship D’Veen.’

‘That’s the answer you gave here.’

‘Because it’s the right answer.’

‘And how did you know that, Miss Threppel?’ He ran both hands over his streaked hair, looking tired.

I put my water bottle down on the table, very carefully. ‘Because I watched the episode.’ Lots of times, actually. It had been a very early episode in Series One, but hadn’t been released on DVD because of some kind of copyright issues. I’d burned it to DVD myself, via my laptop, but I wasn’t going to admit that in case it was against the law.

‘Look, Gary? . . .’ Jack began, but was stopped with a raised hand.

‘Please, Jay, let her go on.’

‘Well, that’s it really. I knew the answer.’

‘How about here?’ Gary pointed at my changed answer. ‘How come you altered this?’

‘I . . .’

‘It wasn’t, how shall I say this, because Mr Whitaker here fed you the answers before you even sat down to the quiz and you didn’t want to arouse suspicion by getting too many right?’

Jack made a startled noise.

‘What? Jack? Why on earth would he do that?’ I looked across at him and Jack was looking back at me, his expression as baffled as I’m sure mine was.

‘You tell me, Miss Threppel. You tell me.’ Gary sat down again. There was a long pause, during which I ran through every conversation Jack and I had had in case he might have given me some clue as to what the quiz contained. ‘You see, we’ve had a lot of complaints.’

‘About what?’ I wasn’t sure whether to feel indignant or not, yet.

‘There have been concerns expressed about the fairness of allowing you to participate in what is a very important part of the Fallen Skies convention when you have had a? . . . err? . . . relationship with the main writer.’

‘Oh, come on!’ Jack was bristling. ‘Skye and I have had no kind of relationship.’

‘Okay, you deny that she’s been in your motel room on several occasions?’

‘Well, no.’

‘But that was all just? . . . stuff!’ I protested. ‘Personal stuff.’

‘Yeah.’ Jack put a hand on my shoulder; I leaned into him for solidarity. ‘We’re friends. That’s all, Gary. We never met before Wednesday.’

‘Right. But even if that were true, we’ve got people saying? . . .’ Gary consulted another piece of paper, ‘that Miss Threppel conducted a meeting with Mr Tudor-Morgan in the car park of this motel, where you sat, and I quote, “in physical proximity” for several minutes?’

‘But that was after the quiz!’

‘So you don’t deny that. What about an unauthorised attempt to access Fallen Skies material from Jay’s laptop? You know anything about that?’

I opened my mouth and closed it again. Bloody Felix and his trying to look for information! There was a sick feeling starting at the base of my throat.

‘All right. Do you deny that you went to Mr Tudor-Morgan’s accommodation yesterday, that you let yourself in, and that some minutes later you were alone with him in the bathroom?’

‘He was in the shower. I wasn’t.’ I sounded sulky but really it was just me trying to avoid hyperventilating. This was a set up.

‘Have you, or have you not, ever been — now how shall I put this so as not to cause offence? — naked, or partly naked with Mr Tudor-Morgan or Mr Whitaker and have you ever kissed, touched intimately or had sexual congress with Mr Tudor-Morgan or Mr Whitaker, delete where applicable.’

I frowned. ‘No! Delete where applicable? ’

‘Sorry. It’s a standard lawyers’ form.’ Gary rubbed his eyes and the man leaning on the wall with his arms folded, shifted position, as though both of them were embarrassed by this. ‘Y’see Skye,’ he leaned forward and the table rocked, ‘it’s not about what you’ve done, or haven’t done. It’s the fact that you could have . There’s a lot of young people out there who wanted that part in the series. And, if I might say it, you do look awful close with Jay.’

‘Gethryn kissed me. That’s all that happened,’ I muttered. Behind me, Jack swore.

Gary moved his eyes slowly over my face. They lingered on the scar, moved off and came back to it. Twice. ‘Yeah. But d’you see it from the organisers’ point of view? There’s an element of doubt in your winning. I’m real sorry, Skye, but that’s how it is.’

‘Fuck it.’ Jack moved forward to lean on the table. ‘She won fair and square, Gary, and you know it. Even if we had been sleeping together, you know me well enough to say that I’d never give information out like that.’

‘For the record, I don’t think you cheated. But it isn’t what I think that matters here.’ Gary lowered his voice. ‘And while you would never give anything away, there’s Geth in this equation, and can you truly say that he’d never fix the quiz?’ The two men stared at one another for a few seconds.

‘He never had access to the answers,’ Jack almost breathed. ‘I made sure.’

‘It’s not about what happened , Jay. It’s about what could have happened. We have to be seen to be doing it right, or next year our viewing figures get blown outta the water by some Stargate shit.’

Jack straightened up and replaced his glasses. ‘Okay,’ he said tiredly. ‘Okay. Yes, you’re right. We have to be seen to be doing it right. Course.’ He ran both hands through his hair, raking them down to his shoulders, which he raised in a quick shrug. ‘Sorry, Skye.’

‘You’re taking the prize away from me?’ Oh my God, Felix! He was already planning his future LA career; knowing him he’d already picked out his Oscars’ outfit. And written the acceptance speech.

Gary shrugged. ‘We’ll move every winner up a prize category. And don’t worry, Jay, we’ll say that there was a mistake with the marking system, you won’t be implicated.’

Jack gave him a dark look. ‘That,’ he said tightly, ‘is very kind of you, but the least of my worries.’

I thought of Jennifer, second-prize winner, and her face when she learned she’d won the date with Gethryn. I didn’t think she would regard being bumped up to being an extra as an improvement, particularly when Gethryn wasn’t even going to be in the series any more. And third-prize winner, now Gethryn’s date, was a bloke. Probably safer.

I only realised that I was crying when Jack held out a handkerchief. ‘Go on. It’s clean.’

I blubbed into it for a second, then looked at him. ‘Where did you have it? There’s no pockets in that.’

‘Trouser leg.’

‘Oh. Ewwww.’

‘Go back to the ball. We won’t announce this until tomorrow, give you a chance to get clear, okay?’ Gary looked at Jack. ‘Best I can do.’ Then his eyes rested on me, almost kindly. ‘I’m real sorry, Skye. But, you gotta see it from our point of view, and you and him seem real tight, y’know?’

‘Yes,’ I sniffed. ‘But I didn’t even know who Jack was when I first met him.’

Gary grinned. ‘How’s your ego, Iceman?’

‘It’s good, thanks. Come on, Skye, let’s go back. We can try and enjoy ourselves.’

I just shook my head and let Jack lead the way back, squeezing past an eyebrow-raising Antonio on the reception desk to the entry to the diner. Through the doors I could see that some of the Thulos had cast off their restrictive all-enveloping muslin wraps to dance to the band, a Klingon was smoking outside, smoke straining through his pasty forehead looking very peculiar, and the inflatable Dalek was attempting to snog a pilot. I had to find Felix and tell him what had happened, before one of the organisers did.

‘Skye.’ Jack steered me into a dark corner near the stairs in the reception area. ‘I am truly sorry about this.’

‘Not your fault.’ I blew my nose again.

‘Well, it is. I should have known, should have stayed away from you. But I? . . .’ He stopped talking suddenly, and his hands began fidgeting. The arm of his glasses made its way back between his teeth.

‘Cigarette?’ I asked, sympathetically.

‘Kill for one,’ he agreed. ‘But not important. Not now. Come here.’ Shoving his glasses resolutely into the neck of his shirt he manoeuvred us further back until we were hidden by the shadows under the deep staircase. ‘You’ve heard the phrase “might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb”?’

‘Well, of course I have. I’m British.’

‘Good. Here’s my sheep then.’ With his eyes boring their way through to my brain, he tilted my chin with a finger and, when my mouth reached the requisite angle, lowered his lips to mine and kissed me.

My mouth opened under his gentle onslaught. Lips parted, I kissed him back, and suddenly we were in a tight clinch; my hands wound into his hair, his fingers ran up my arms and down over my back, making my skin burn where he touched it, and sing with the pressure of the velvet where he stroked the dress.

He was one hot kisser, no doubt about it. He ran his tongue along the underside of my upper lip, sending pulses of warmth through my bloodstream, bit gently on my lower lip until it swelled, grazed his fingertips along my collarbone until I almost fell off my high heels.

‘God. Jack,’ was all I could say when he eventually stepped back. My mouth tasted of oranges from the juice he’d drunk at the bar, and all my nerve endings were standing to attention, waiting for the next move.

‘Yay.’ He let out a breath which sounded like he’d been holding it since before we’d gone into that room. ‘Genius. I’m a bit impressed myself.’

‘That was? . . .’

‘Yes. It was. I think I need to sit down. Well, maybe in a minute. Bloody hell, what possessed me to wear these ?’ He moved the pyjama trousers around carefully, re-tying the cord that kept them closed. ‘Better. Right. Look, hate to abandon you after that? . . . little moment, but I really, really need a smoke. I’m going to pop up to my room, grab my pack and then I’ll meet you outside, okay?’

‘Okay,’ I half-whispered, running my tongue over my now-pouting lower lip.

‘Back in five.’ With a last, hair-raising kiss dropped on the base of my neck and a lazy finger traced over my mouth, he was gone.

My heart was still thundering so loudly that I couldn’t hear the band playing in the diner, only the other side of the doors, and I found myself touching my lips with a feeling close to disbelief. Jack. Not only sensationally good-looking but a fantastic kisser? My skin felt alive, and the dress was charged with static, giving off little sparks whenever I moved. Wow. I needed to sit down. But I needed to find Felix more.

I slipped out of the shoes and with them hanging from a finger, and my other hand hitching up the skirts of the dress, I stepped out into the subtle lighting effects of the diner. Continuous scenes from the show were still being projected, but people walked through the beams, causing images to be flashed onto skin, making everyone look chameleon-like and unfamiliar.

‘Lissa!’ I spotted the slim figure, wearing a gold spray-on catsuit and crystal tiara, hanging around by the bar. ‘Have you seen Felix?’

She turned slowly, careful not to spill her drink. ‘Hello, Skye. He’s? . . .’ an emphatic arm stroked the air, ‘somewhere.’

‘I really need to talk to him.’ Needed to get things straight with him before I could even think about what had happened? . . . was happening with Jack. I didn’t want Felix to think badly of me, was what it came down to.

A slender shrug and I sighed. Much as I was growing to quite like Lissa, I just wished that sometimes she’d give me an absolute, definite answer.

‘Just out of curiosity — what did you come as?’ I looked at her slender figure, not a misplaced bump or dimple anywhere.

‘A diamond ring,’ she enunciated slowly.

‘Lovely. Very? . . . sci-fi.’ I looked around the crowd and at last spotted Felix, minus his fur coat, standing in a corner with one arm wrapped around Jared. They were laughing hysterically and I seriously hoped that he wasn’t too drunk because I needed him to concentrate. I walked over to them.

‘Fe? . . . we need to go somewhere quiet.’

Jared laughed louder. ‘Man, I don’t know whether to love you or despise you. Is there anyone here you haven’t had?’

Felix tipped his chin up, confrontationally. ‘This isn’t like that. But Skye, does it have to be now?’

Jared touched his shoulder. ‘I’ll see you later, babe.’

‘Jared!’ But Jared was melting into the crowd, a few last-minute autograph hunters at his heels. ‘Great. Just great.’ Felix turned on me. ‘This had better be good, darling.’

‘It’s not.’ I took his arm and drew him into the relative peace of the gap between the two open doors, through which the night breeze was cooling things down a little. There, holding my high heels in one hand and Felix’s elbow in the other, I told him about the little scene in the office. About his losing out on the prize.

Felix stood absolutely still. There was no trace of expression on his face, nothing to tell me whether he was devastated or amused by the accusations. No sign that he was on my side either. I finished telling him that Gary hadn’t believed that anyone had fed me the answers but that they had to be seen to be doing the right thing, and waited.

I didn’t have a long wait. Fe shook his head hard, like a horse that’s been bitten by a fly, then looked at me with dead eyes. ‘You stupid little bitch,’ he said.

‘Fe, I didn’t? . . .’

‘Didn’t what , lover? Didn’t do it? Oh, maybe not, but you wanted Gethryn Tudor-Morgan, and you’ve been fooling around with Whitaker for anyone to see. If you’d had any sense you’d have stayed clear of the both of them but, no. Skye sees, Skye wants, Skye takes.’

‘That’s not fair!’

‘But they weren’t playing, were they?’ Felix had both hands bunched by his sides and his words were coming out in short bursts, like verbal punches. ‘They weren’t falling for the poor little girl routine. Maybe they saw right through it, saw the real you underneath this whole “I’m so damaged” act, maybe they saw you for the manipulative, self-obsessed whore that you really are!’

‘Hey.’ I looked up and Jack was standing beside us, unlit cigarette between his fingers. ‘It’s a misunderstanding. No need to take it out on Skye, Felix.’ In one smooth move he turned away from Fe, caught me by the elbow and half-dragged me out through the doors, my shoes still hanging from my finger. Once in the open air he lit his cigarette. ‘Why did you tell him? In the middle of all this? Couldn’t it have waited?’

‘It had to come from me, Jack. That was only right.’

There was a noise behind us. Felix was standing a few feet away, hands on hips. His T-shirt was sweat-drenched. His hair had flopped from its spikes across his forehead and his eyes were almost dark in his pale face. He came fast, before either of us knew what he intended; his compact body hit Jack in the midriff, shoulder first, sending Jack skewering down onto the dusty ground, then his fists followed up with a poorly aimed double blow to the face. But Felix was drunk and Jack was fitter and taller. He sliced to his feet underneath Felix, pushing him over until Fe thumped onto his back, lying sprawled and breathless with fists still balled. ‘Don’t,’ Jack said, straightening up. ‘Really. Don’t.’ He retrieved his cigarette and blew the dust off the tip. ‘Bugger. It’s gone out.’

I looked up and saw a small crowd beginning to gather in the doorway, all staring out into the yard, where Felix lay trying to get his breath back while Jack, looking rumpled, frantically tried to relight his cigarette. I wanted to say something, anything to make this all right again, but I couldn’t think of a bloody thing.

Lissa rescued us. She arrived at the front of the crowd, looking spectacular and thin and bringing with her two of the burliest security men. ‘Okay, nothing to see, guys.’ She spoke over the speculative rumblings. ‘Just a private matter?’ The question was aimed at Jack, over my head. He did the twisted-mouth thing again and blew smoke high into the air, and she marshalled the security team to push everyone back inside the diner. Just before she followed, she hissed at Jack, ‘Take your bar-brawl somewhere else, Ice, yeah? Go play out the jealous boyfriend performance where no-one can see. I can’t hold this forever.’

Jack jerked his head at me and I followed as he walked further out into the night, stopping when we got past the circle of lights which described the edge of the car park. Felix came with us at a wary distance. This wasn’t over.

‘Okay.’ Jack leaned against the tree under which I’d met Gethryn. ‘What’s this really about?’

I shook my head. ‘Felix is angry that I hung around with you and Geth. He thinks it’s all my fault that I’ve been disqualified because I? . . . flirted with you both.’

But Jack wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Felix, whose head hung forward as though it was too heavy for his neck. The soaked T-shirt had pulled out of shape and twisted around his body and his carefully trendy jeans were caked with dust. He was crying, lumpy tears streaking down his face and rolling onto his chest. I thought back to what Lissa had said, about watching for the real Felix, behind the drugs and the sex-addiction. Was that what I was seeing now — the real man?

‘Fe?’

A slow, uneven headshake and a long, sobbing intake of breath. It didn’t even look like Felix any more, this leaden, hunched figure. His hair had gone flat, and the old Felix would have been frantic, teasing fingers through it to spike it back. This man just stood, unaware.

‘Leave him a minute, Skye.’ Jack’s voice was surprisingly gentle, considering that Felix had tried to beat his head in. ‘Let him settle.’

Felix collapsed forward, landing on his hands and knees then crouching back so that his legs were against his chest and his arms encircled them, pulling himself in. He laid his head on his drawn-up knees and continued to sob, white-knuckled.

I felt sympathetic tears prick my own eyes and gulped past the clogging in my throat so that I could speak. ‘Is this drugs?’

Felix spoke then, his voice harsh and torn. ‘No. It’s you.’

Jack, showing extraordinary courage I thought, crouched beside him. ‘Felix,’ he said softly, ‘losing the quiz prize doesn’t have to be the end of it, you know. I’m writing a part, not huge but pivotal, Seran Vye. I think you’d be perfect for it. I’ll recommend you.’

‘You’d do that, just for this?’ I stared at him.

‘Hey, it’s still my show. I can do what I like until I hand over.’ A steady look. ‘It’s partly my fault you lost out. I should have known. I should have stayed away from everyone. It was just? . . .’ He lowered his head and hid his expression. ‘So, yeah. Making amends.’ He reached out and rubbed Felix’s back gently. ‘But this, this is more.’

Fe looked up then. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s more. It’s fucking everything .’ Jack waited. A few seconds passed and Felix reached out. Grabbed Jack’s hand and held it. ‘I’m falling apart.’

‘You’ve been holding it together too long. Let us in, Felix. It’ll help.’

Their joined hands were white with pressure from Felix’s fingers. ‘Fe.’ I bent down too, letting the dress sweep the dust. ‘If it’s me, if it’s something I did, I’m sorry.’

A muffled laugh. Felix had his mouth pressed against his knees now, as if he was afraid words would leak out without his permission. ‘You! It’s all been about you, hasn’t it?’

Jack moved until he was hugging Felix, arms around the huddled body. ‘Felix, you have to tell us. You’re going to break down completely if you try to keep everything inside.’

Fe half-raised his head. ‘How do you know all this shit?’ Then he slumped again, resting his face against Jack’s chest. ‘It hurts.’

‘Then talk.’

A huge breath, like an inverted sigh. ‘I know what caused the accident. I’ve always known. And Skye? . . . I’m never sure how much she’s really forgotten and how much she’s pretending.’ He spoke into Jack’s shirt, one hand still gripping Jack’s, the other wound into the fabric like a child holding his mother’s skirts. ‘She can’t face it, y’ see. Her life? . . . that perfect life that she thinks she was living? . . . a total fucking sham. All of it.’

Suddenly I could taste blood. ‘Felix?’

‘Hey, easy.’ Jack spoke as though Fe was a nervous animal. He carried on rubbing Fe’s back, small circular motions like a mother trying to bring up her baby’s wind. It smeared the dust and sweat into streaking mud but Felix was beyond caring.

He looked at me. There was nothing cherubic about his face now; in fact it was almost demonic. ‘You don’t get it, do you? It was never real, you and Mike. You weren’t engaged at all, it was just a story you told people. Oh, you told lots of stories, Skye, how you “only just” missed out on being cast in Being Human , you were offered Mamma Mia but had to turn it down, you were on the shortlist to be the new Doctor Who companion? . . . all stories. All fucking fake . All to make you look better. Mike and Faith were dating, Skye. Seeing each other behind your back.’

Suddenly it was as though Jack didn’t exist. All I could see was Felix, head up, defiant. ‘How long?’ I whispered. ‘How long had they? . . . ?’

‘All the fucking time.’ Felix’s voice was so cold the air almost vaporised around the words. ‘ All the fucking time , Skye. And you know what? They had a good time. Not that destructive, screaming thing you had going on with him.’

‘Then why . . . ?’

Even as I said it, I felt the huge plummeting in my stomach. Like my internal organs were in a lift with a snapped cable, like freefall. And a new understanding slammed me between the eyes, like a cashmere-wrapped anvil; the force nearly knocked me to the floor. All those little whispers, that nasty, snidey voice in the back of my head, telling me how worthless I was all the time? . . . I’d thought it was my subconscious. But they’d been memories? . . . memories of Michael . . .

‘Now let me think? . . .’ Fe was still in my face. ‘You dated him. He took you out, gave you a good time and suddenly — WHAM — you’re in love. You wouldn’t leave him alone, you stalked him, turned up at his flat all suspenders and high heels? . . . he had to date Faith without you knowing because we were all afraid of what you might do. To him, to them, to yourself.’ Felix raked his eyes up and down me. ‘You were mental, Skye. Really mental.’

‘Easy.’ Jack repeated. He’d stopped rubbing Felix’s back now, but was still holding his hand.

Felix raised an eyebrow over a glacial stare. ‘I reckon you don’t want to know the truth about your girlfriend’s past life.’

‘We all have things to hide.’ Jack was even, but cool.

‘Mike was? . . . he kind of liked it. He’d lead her on, pretend they still had a relationship, that Skye could save it if she tried hard enough.’ Felix shook his head. ‘But the night of the accident? . . .’ Now he looked at me directly. ‘You caught them. Found them snogging in the bathroom at the party. I’m not surprised you don’t remember, even I tried to wipe that little image out of my head. We thought we’d have to call the police. But you passed out.’ He looked up at Jack now. ‘I put her in the back of the car, but on the way home she came round. Saw them sitting there in the front, with Faith’s hand on Mike’s cock.’ Felix gave me a look that nearly seared the flesh from my skeleton, a look so deep with cold that mammoths could have walked on it. ‘What did you think would happen, Skye?’

‘I didn’t know,’ I whispered. ‘I didn’t know.’ My skin was chilled but inside I felt a huge fire flame up. ‘I caused the accident?’

‘You tried to climb through. Just undid your seatbelt and started trying to get at Mike, going for him with your nails, all flailing and screaming? . . . grabbing at the wheel? . . . I got hold of you, tried to drag you off but then you went for my face? . . . kicked Mike in the head. Your whole life was a fake, Skye. Even your grief is fake. You weren’t Mike’s real girlfriend, and you killed my sister .’

‘So all this? . . . you used me to win you that part?’ Shock had made my voice shake a little. Jack looked at me and his eyes were huge.

‘I didn’t know what to do.’ Felix hid his face again and all the anger seemed to have drained away. ‘I liked you. Yeah, you were batshit crazy but you? . . . you were always nice to me, you know? Before. And I’d got no-one. My parents, oh, they love me all right but all they really want is Faith back, they can’t see me any more. They used to be interested, involved, wanting to know how the auditions went, how my life was going? . . . and now? . . .’ He held up empty hands. ‘I’ve lost them too, you know? And you were all I had. So I? . . . And then, last year, at the convention they had the quiz. And I got to thinking? . . . maybe, if they held it again you would? . . . I need that part, Skye. I’ve got nothing else.’

‘Skye,’ Jack’s voice was calm. ‘Take it easy. You’re shaking. And Felix, you need to calm down. Let’s go back to the diner, then I reckon you ought to head to bed.’ Those supernova eyes met mine, crawled inside my head. ‘You’d better come, too. We need to talk.’

‘I don’t know what to say to you.’

He got to his feet, pulling a reluctant Felix along with him, hands still joined. ‘Fuck, you smell good.’ Fe’s voice was stronger; he’d managed to work in a little bit of the old Felix’s flirty tone. ‘But I don’t know about these clothes.’

‘I’m a writer. I don’t have to look good.’ With barely a glance at me, Jack began helping Felix across the sand towards the lights of the motel and the noisy flickering that was the ball in full swing.